


Contingencies

by DresdenHaskell



Series: Contingent Events [1]
Category: Monster of the Week (Game), Monster of the Week (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Dragons, Fae & Fairies, Gen, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Monster Hunters, Monster of the Week, Multi, POV First Person, Roleplaying Character, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2019-09-21 15:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 96,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17045987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DresdenHaskell/pseuds/DresdenHaskell
Summary: The monster-hunting adventures of an awkward lesbian vampire, a tired gay wizard, a spunky teen runaway, and the assorted colorful people they meet and travel with across America (and occasionally, to realms outside reality).





	1. Waterfight

**Author's Note:**

> The following is an in-character transcription of events in the Monster of the Week tabletop RPG I play in. The other characters are all played by my fellow players or the keeper who runs the game, and credit for those parts goes to them. This is written and uploaded with their permission.

  
Hey. I’m Van Renard. I’m a vampire. Got turned when I was twenty, been hunting monsters off and on for years. I’m fifty-five now. I’ve been mostly alone for most of… everything, I guess.  
  
Until just recently. Ran into a bunch of other hunters by accident. There was a fight with another vampire in an abandoned building. It was a big dumb clusterfuck of everyone trying to kill or prevent killing everyone else, and the other vampire got away in the confusion, so great. Anyway, once everyone settled down and decided not to kill each other, we went a step further and decided to travel together instead.  
  
So now I’m riding with three mostly-strangers. There’s Jacob Baker, ice and water magic wizard, guy who owns the only car in the party. Always looks tired. Sometimes sad tired, sometimes mad tired, but tired either way. Dresses nice though.  
  
Next to him is Rune, a teenage girl with blue hair and a bunch of ear piercings. Always has a black hoodie on over a T-shirt and ripped jeans. Not like I can judge. I’m in an old ABBA T-shirt and even older jeans. Haven’t been able to afford to not look like a hobo in a while.  
  
No, I don’t ask why a teenage girl is on her own, hunting monsters with a baseball bat. Not my business.  
  
Then there’s Tracy. She's six feet tall but always hunched over. Crazy hair, crazier eyes, always has a beanie on (and tinfoil under it? Okay then.) Another member of the hoodie club. Always giving me suspicious looks.  
  
Tracy’s always on a laptop in the back next to me. Rune’s always on one of those Game Boy things. Jacob’s always driving, looking like he’s one yawn away from collapsing into dust, and blasting Broadway musical soundtracks.  
  
Oh yeah, my looks. I'm 5'8", gaunt and ashy, got long black hair I keep in a braid, washed-out-yellow eyes I keep behind some groovy Ray-Bans, and a kinda big Turkish nose I keep in the middle of my face, right between cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass on. Anyway.

Our first mission together is to investigate a weird death in Walker’s Lake, Nevada. It has like, 250 people tops. It’s also hot as hell, because it’s in the middle of the desert, in the middle of summer. Ugh.  
  
When we roll into town (it has basically one road and five buildings), Tracy’s ranting about government conspiracies putting tracking devices in public water, and that’s why you should never drink from a faucet, only bottled water, or else they’ll get you. Rune and Jacob roll their eyes. Tracy asks whose side I’m on.  
  
“I don’t… drink water," I say.  
  
“Yeah, but you notice a difference in taste, in the blood of people who do, right? People who drink bottled water taste better, right?”  
  
“I don’t know? Blood’s blood?”  
  
Jacob walks directly toward the closest spigot. It’s an honest-to-god rusty old spigot in the middle of the town square. I expect some bandana’d desperados to shoot his tie off for drinking in their town.  
  
“I’m going to prove a point,” he says. “This water is fine, see?”  
  
He pumps up some water into an empty bottle, and takes a swig. His face caves in instantly. He’s a man being tested by a higher power, by whatever that water tastes like. He chugs it all down anyway. I think he dies a little on the spot.  
  
Turns out it’s saltwater.  
  
\---  
  
The victim's Mr. Watson. His daughter Kara found his body on the shore of Walker's Lake.  
  
We go to the police station. There's one cop there: Sheriff Jeffreys. Rune pretends to be a junior journalist who wants to write a paper about the murder, and says I'm her mentor. I let her do all the talking, and she sweet-talks us right into the morgue to look at the body.  
  
Watson's covered in fist-sized crescent bruises, and his eyes have been scooped outta their sockets. Nothing else weird about the body. I take photos on my phone, send 'em to the others. Jacob says maybe the guy got run over by a horse. I say maybe he got run over by a mer-centaur.  
  
We visit Kara Watson next. I end up in front when she answers the door. I fumble around trying to figure out what to say to convince her to talk to us, when she already talked to the cops. She shuts the door in my face.  
  
Smooth.  
  
Next we go look at where she found the body. There's a pier out onto the lake. Used to be a boat tethered there, but it's missing and the rope's torn off at one part. The water starts rippling ominously while we're standing close to it. It calms down once we move away. Something is in there, but we better not risk getting attacked before we know what.  
  
Tracy and Jacob go to the one bar in town to try to find, "The old man who knows too much but nobody believes". Exact words. Waddya know, they find the guy after all, except he's not old, he barely knows anything, and he's drunk. He thinks he's marked for death by something otherworldly.  
  
We all meet at the guy's house to talk. Ezekiel Walker. Started having nightmares about dying lately.  
  
The dream goes: A fog rolls in. There's a tall, thin figure with no eyes. He moves towards it, not walking, but he just conveyor belts at it, and it kills him. He doesn't wake up when he dies in the dreams, he just lays there dead and blind for an hour.  
  
We ask about his connection to the Walker's Lake. He says he's descended from the town founder, Alexander Walker. I ask if this used to be some kinda Indian burial ground or whatever, if Alexander killed anyone or angered any spirits to found the town. Zeke says no. "There was nothing before this place."  
  
I ask if any other Walkers had nightmares or died mysteriously lately. He's got no living family. Last Walker died three years ago of cancer.  
  
I ask if maybe the Walkers brought anything over with them when they came out west. Something supernatural. He says no, and that ancient history's probably not relevant. He gets dodgy about family questions after that. Hm.  
  
See, I'd know about that. The Renards brought Uncle Chuck with 'em from Europe, way back when. Sometimes they're family guardians. Maybe Zeke broke a deal with the family’s pet monster, and it wants him to pay for it.  
  
I ask what he does for a living. He's just a cashier in like, the only store in town. Nothing special.  
  
He tells us something interesting about the lake: It used to be freshwater. It's turned salty recently. All the wells and outdoor pumps and faucets come out salty, too. So that's weird.  
  
We tell him we believe him about everything. I leave my number in case he has more info. Or visions.  
  
I take Rune to the town hall next. There's a mayoral debate going on. Mayor Diane Stiles against some new guy. I listen for a little in case they mention the weird saltwater. Nada. We go in, ask for Walker family history. We gotta get a living descendant's signature to access the records. I say cool beans and take a form. We're definitely never getting Zeke to agree to that.  
  
Back outside. Debate's winding down. I suddenly realize maybe the mayor's got something after her too -- maybe the monster is just going after founders and leaders of the town. I throw my hand up to ask a question.  
  
"Had any weird dreams lately?"  
  
There's a long, awkward pause. They move on to someone else. Cool beans. That wasn't dumb at all.  
  
We do get in to talk to Mayor Stiles in her office though. Rune uses the junior journalist story again. Says her paper's about the psychology of leadership. We ask about dreams, nightmares, how the mayor and community feel about the recent death. Stiles has nightmares about falling or being trapped. Nothing about fog or dying.  
  
Jacob hits the library. He gets a good idea what the thing is: A nuckelavee. Old Norse myth, or Celtic myth, depends on the book. Basically an ocean god, can only move in and control saltwater. Usually they live in the ocean, so how one got here, into a previously-freshwater lake in Nevada, who knows (I bet 'who' are the Watsons and Walkers).  
  
Nuckelavees are fast, strong, spread famine and disease, have no skin, and their only weakness is freshwater. You can escape one by jumping over a creek. So it's a good thing we're in the middle of the damn desert.  
  
As Rune and I leave the town hall, Tracy calls us. There's splashing and yelling in the background.  
  
"Get to the pier! It's trying to kill Zeke!"  
  
\---  
  
We get to the pier just as the nuckelavee rises out of the lake.  
  
It looks like a guy riding a horse lost his legs, got merged with the horse's back by his crotch, and then had all their skin removed. Oh, and they both only have one eye. Not plucked out, but just one huge eye on each face. It's also got crazy-long arms and claws.  
  
Rune rushes in first on her skateboard, swinging her bat. It skewers her through the torso. I rush in, grab its wrist and bite its fingers right off. Ten seconds into this fight, and the kid's already near-death. Great.  
  
Tracy grabs Zeke, which the nuckelavee was trying to trample when we got there. She gets him off the pier, away from the water. He's already hurt, but not as bad as Rune. The nuck hits me, doesn't do so much damage to me. Vampires are tough stuff. I can't do much to it either, though.  
  
Jacob finally shows off his wizard magic, pulling up a big tidal wave from the lake and making a huge wall of ice to block the nuck off at the end of the pier. We all run off before it can break through. Once we're off the pier, the monster dissolves into water again. So do the fingers still stuck in Rune, so now she has a buncha bleeding holes in her chest.  
  
We ask Zeke what he was doing. He wanted to get it over with already and confront the monster. I forget if we call him a dumbass or not out loud, but I definitely think it.  
  
Jacob and Tracy take Rune to the hospital. I get Zeke further away from the lake and keep an eye on him.  
  
At some point while we're walking around town, at night, alone, I get a craving. It's not a conscious, thinking kind of craving. I don't go, "Cool, time to eat this guy." I just notice suddenly how hungry I am. It's been a while. But I keep my cool and don't do anything I'll regret.  
  
A weird fog rolls into town. Zeke says it looks just like in his nightmares. I ask him if that's normal. He says no, because it's Nevada, duh.  
  
Rune takes a few days to recover. There's pretty much nothing to do in town while we wait.  
  
Jacob comes up to me one of those nights. I never sleep (I can, but I don't), and he barely sleeps (he needs to, but he doesn't). We're pretty much always awake at the same time. Sometimes we chat. He's the only person so far to ask me how old I am. (I think Tracy thinks I'm ancient. Sometimes she says something about, like, schools not existing yet when I was young.)  
  
This time he gets around to asking which way I swing. I tell him I'm a lesbian, ask what his is, he says he's gay. Cool. It's pretty obvious for both of us though. Even I know who showtunes and Carly Rae Jepsen are most popular with these days.  
  
"So which famous person triggered your gay awakening?" he asks.  
  
"Mm. I didn't really realize it for a long time, but definitely Farrah Fawcett," I say. "What about you?"  
  
"Gerard Way, from My Chemical Romance. When I saw the music video for 'I'm Not Okay (I Promise)' for the first time." He shows me a photo on his phone when I ask who that is.  
  
I shrug and nod. "He's better than all the teen heart-throbs in my day. Girls would show me these boys in the magazines and I just... didn't get it. I'd go home and watch Charlie's Angels instead."  
  
By the time Rune's out of the hospital, the sky's dark and cloudy. A big supernatural storm is brewing. The big problem about that is it'll probably be saltwater too, and then the nuckelavee has free reign of the town. We hatch a plan, the best thing we can do on short notice.  
  
Step one: We buy water pistols and fill them with freshwater.  
  
Step two: Tracy steals a bunch of garden hoses from houses around town.  
  
Step three: We use the hoses to make one mega-hose and trail it from the sink faucet of Zeke's house all the way to the base of the pier.  
  
Step four: We make a loop-de-loop with the hoses and have Zeke stand in the middle of it.  
  
Step five: We wait at the ready. Tracy, Jacob, and I stand around Zeke with the water pistols, and Rune waits at the faucet.  
  
We don't account for the fact the nuckelavee isn't a stupid animal. It doesn't show up while we're all standing there. I usher everyone away from sight and leave Zeke. As soon as we're clear, the nuck bursts out of the water. He runs, it starts to chase, I yell for Rune to turn on the water.  
  
It stops in the hose loop like it hits a brick wall. It screeches as it turns it circles. We run over and squirt it with the water pistols. The fresh water melts it down like acid. We're lucky it can't fly, since we can't make a hose cube or anything.  
  
So yeah. The hardest part of finishing it off is running back and forth to the house to refill the pistols. It melts to nothing. Hooray.  
  
Oh, we also do this like, right out there in the open, so a bunch of people see a water god burst out of the lake and get melted down. People go screaming and running. Nobody even thanks us. Lame.  
  
The storm clears. The darkness in the water pulls out like it's getting sucked up somewhere, and disappears. Probably doesn't mean anything.  
  
I go over to Tracy as we're getting ready to leave, and say, "Hey, a bunch of people saw that. Could you publish one of those viral internet things saying it was all a special effects publicity stunt or something?"  
  
She slowly turns her head to me like an angry, wide-eyed owl. "You want me to do a cover-up?"  
  
"Nevermind."  
  
We all hop in the car and drive away as fast as possible.


	2. Pokerface

  
We hear about a few cases we can go after: A guy killed by a giant spider, a guy killed by a swarm of flies in his own car, and a guy found burned to death after getting busted embezzling from a casino, but his corpse is way older than it should be.  
  
I joke about luring the giant spider to the swarm of flies and letting it eat them.  
  
We go after the burnt embezzler. Partly because that's in Vegas, so it's the shortest trip. Partly because it sounds like an interesting mystery. Partly because nobody wants to deal with bugs.  
  
On the way to Vegas, Rune says to Jacob, "Hey, you're basically my guardian now, right?"  
  
"Sure," he says.  
  
"Can you give me permission to do stuff?"  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Can I get a tattoo?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Aww, why not?"  
  
"You're too young."  
  
"Vegas lets minors get tattoos with a guardian's permission!" she says.  
  
"With what I.D.? With whose money?" he says. "You can't afford one, and I'm not paying for it."  
  
She pouts for ten seconds before turning to look at me in the back seat. "Hey Van, can I get a tattoo?"  
  
I honestly don't care as long as it's not too tacky, but I don't wanna get into an argument about it either. "Uh..."  
  
I see Jacob staring me down hard in the rear-view mirror. I sink down in the seat and pull my shades on. "...No."  
  
After a while, I ask her what kind of tattoo she'd get if she got one. I have a plan in my head already. She holds up her phone to show me pictures of a cartoon Illuminati triangle with a hat. "This is Bill Cipher. He's from Gravity Falls." Since I have no idea what that means, she explains it right up until we get to the city (it's a cartoon. About people like us, apparently. The plot is way more complex than anything I grew up with.)  
  
We get to Vegas, and go straight to clothes shopping. Tracy and I get suits. Fuckin' finally. I get to dress nice again. It's on Jacob's dime, so I don't go crazy looking for a Men's Warehouse for anything custom-tailored. Hit a few thrift stores to find a black suit and accessories. Jacob rustles up fake I.D.s and FBI badges for us. He's got a lot of contacts in the hunting business.  
  
Jacob and I go to the precinct. We're in matching Aviators. I'm loving this already. We meet Detective Levinson, and flash our badges. Jacob goes by Agent Elliot Walker. I go with Renard Van Ness. Not that creative, but whatever.  
  
We get case details. The victim, Garry White, was the Vice President of Financial Administration at The Golden Nugget Casino. Got caught embezzling, made a run for it from the cops, they found his corpse burnt to a crisp in an alleyway. They had to identify him by his teeth.  
  
His body was found two weeks ago, but the coroner says time of death had to be six months ago.  
  
We look at the body. Can't make any more sense of it than the coroner. Fake badges might get you into the morgue, but it doesn't make you know what you're doing. We take photos and a copy of the case file.  
  
No next of kin. He had a sister who died a year ago. No spouse, kids, anything. Had some pets (all given to good homes by now).  
  
We check out the alley where he died. We find some spare, used clothes. Rune finds a silver knife. So that's weird.  
  
We look at Garry's house next. The place is clean. Way clean, other than the fact it's been abandoned for a couple weeks. Which is specifically not six months. Numbers don't add up but we still don't know why.  
  
I take some OTC painkillers and sleeping pills from his medicine cabinet. I don't need either, but the others might, and he's not using it anymore. Doesn't look like he used it much in the first place, either.

Back at the car, Tracy says, “Silicone Man!” and gets on her laptop to “get in touch with a guy”. “The guy” is Dylan, is another conspiracy theorist from the internet. He’s not a “silicone man”. That’s what Tracy thinks the monster is. Rune says she thinks it’s a shapeshifter, maybe specifically a doppelganger.

Tracy brings Rune and I to meet Dylan in a park. He says he might be able to get some useful info by hacking the casino’s records for us – he’s less likely to get busted for it. He asks who we are first.

“They’re with me,” Tracy says. “Our other guy is waiting in the car. I think he’s chipped.”

The meeting goes nowhere, except Dylan promising to do this favor for us. It’ll just take time. We dunno how much time we have, so Tracy tries calling up the casino manager herself, pretending to be his old buddy and wanting to get together to hang out soon. He doesn’t buy it. No-go.  
  
So the four of us hit the casino in person. Turns out Vegas is pretty family-friendly nowadays, so Rune's allowed inside, as long as she stays on the specified walkways away from the tables and machines. She goes off wandering, so I tail her to keep an eye on her, while Jacob goes up to the front desk to try to meet with the manager.  
  
He calls me pretty soon to tell me it didn't work, and he and Tracy got kicked out of the casino. Okay then. I tell Rune we gotta leave.  
  
We're almost out when she reaches out to grab some fancy-ass gold-leafed luxury chocolate off the platter of a passing waitress. Or tries to, anyway. The waitress slaps her hand away and threatens to call security. Rune makes up a story about thinking they were free for everyone. The waitress threatens to call the cops. I rush in, say sorry, and rush Rune out the door.  
  
"Took you two long enough," Jacob says when we get in the car.  
  
"I'm not naming any names," I say, "but someone tried to steal candy from the casino."  
  
"She did what?" he says, in a tone that reminds me exactly of when my grandparents found out I was doing something similar.  
  
It kinda dawns on me we basically really are her surrogate parents now. Which worries the hell outta me. I'm pretty much the furthest thing from a trustworthy guardian.  
  
Rune changes the subject. "Hey, did you know Garry White had a MySpace?"  
  
"Like, actively updated?" Jacob says.  
  
"Yeah! In 2018, weird, right?"  
  
I have heard of MySpace. I know that people put music on their spaces. "What kind of music is playing on it?" I ask. "He worked in a casino, so if it's not Frank Sinatra or something else from the Rat Pack, then what is he even doing with his life?"  
  
"What the hell's a Rat Pack?" Rune says. It hurts my soul. "Anyway, it's Evanescence."  
  
It also reminds me that I have all the downsides of being too old to get modern references anymore, but I'll literally never be allowed to use the senior citizen discount I deserve. Unlife isn't fair sometimes.  
  
"Silicone man," Tracy mutters without looking up. "The feds replace him to infiltrate society, had to burn him when he got found out..."  
  
It's night by now, so Jacob pulls the car over somewhere secluded, where we can sleep it in without getting bothered. Okay, where they can sleep in it.  
  
I fight with my smartphone for a while to figure out how to use the Google. I get directions to Wal-Mart. I walk off with a mission for my last few bucks.  
  
Rune suddenly skateboards up from behind me. "Hey Van! Whatcha doin'?"  
  
"Uh. Hey. Going to the store."  
  
"Whatcha buyin'?"  
  
"Um. Just. Stuff. Not important."  
  
"Can I come with you?" she asks.  
  
I wanna say no for two reasons. One is if she comes along it'll ruin the surprise. Two, being alone on some side-street at night reminds me, like with Zeke, that it's been a long time since I fed.  
  
I don't want to hurt her. I've never bit a kid. But it's like if I was a human fasting for a month, and someone waves a fresh-baked pizza right under my nose. I back away from her, but she keeps rolling forward to follow me.  
  
"No, uh. Just tell me what you want from the store," I say.  
  
"I want some Reese's Cups. The big cups. King-Size. Not those stupid little mini-cups. And not Reese's Pieces."  
  
Man, she eats a lot of sugar.  
  
"Sure. See ya." I shoot fingerguns at her and back away more. She turns around. I wait and watch to make sure she gets down the sidewalk safely.  
  
I hit up Wal-Mart. Rune's still awake when I get back. She's waiting outside the car. I hand her the bag. She tears into the Reese's instantly, then sees the other item.  
  
"Um. It's the best I could do," I say.  
  
She gets a look of glee that tells me I made the right choice in buying her a pack of temporary tattoos.  
  
\---  
  
Detective Levinson calls me in the morning. There's been another victim: Jason Kimble, an accountant.  
  
We go down to the morgue. Body's not burned. He was strangled to death. Only clear connection to White is they both work in money (and did business in or with the Golden Nugget). I try to eliminate other patterns. No pets this time. Also has a sister, Rachel Kimble, but she's still alive.  
  
And we're still at a loss. A bodysnatcher of some kind seems most likely. We just don't know what kind. I still say time travel is possible.  
  
Jacob points out a nearby poster of an older (but not old) couple: Whitney and Elliot Baker, traveling stage magicians, coming soon to perform in Vegas.  
  
"My parents are in the hunting business," he says. "I can give them a call and see what they know about this."  
  
I realize his fake name is just his father's name, and the last place we went to. Or maybe just the last almost-victim we met. Either way.  
  
I also realize I kinda recognize his parents, but I'm not sure where. I think I ran into one or both of them once, on a monster hunt. Something about Whitney nags at me though, but it's probably not important, so I don't worry about it anymore.  
  
We go to the accounting firm Kimble worked at. We don't have a good plan, except to try to warn people there that someone might be targeting them or their associates (the firm did work with the casino).  
  
Tracy joins in the fake-agent business, puts on her suit, but then drops her voice way low and uses a man's name. She looks uncomfortable the whole time, and somehow even more conspicuous than if she just stalked up in her baggy clothes and beanie.  
  
Since Rune's a kid and I'm historically bad at talking to people, Tracy's trying to do the talking thing. Tracy either leaves in a hurry or gets kicked out shortly. Nobody seriously took the warnings about someone killing their people.  
  
She shudders like she just watched someone eat a spider. "Ugh. That was awful."  
  
"Why?" I ask.  
  
"Why do you think, 'Mister Van Ness'?"  
  
"I mean, I don't know. Pretending to be a fed working for 'The Man' doesn't like, jive with your whole groove?"  
  
"No, it's - That part's fine."  
  
It occurs to me that, though she's never specifically said it, Tracy is probably trans. And probably has a problem with people thinking she's a guy because of that.  
  
I've always been butch, and pretty okay just being whatever about gender presentation and pronouns. It's a weird perspective to think about only wanting to be one over the other forever.  
  
It also makes a hell of a lot more sense why Rune's the only one in the party who buys feminine supplies. Man, I'm just slow about obvious things sometimes.  
  
Nobody says anything more about any of it though. We go to Rachel Kimble's apartment. Tracy and Jacob head off to do some research. Before they go, Jacob takes me aside. He hands me a dark bottle out of a cooler in the trunk. It's his blood. He was saving it up over time. I say thanks.  
  
I go into the building with Rune. We use a cover story about her being an intern or something.  
  
Turns out Rachel was roomies with her brother Jason. We ask if he had any enemies. Nope. Any medications? Yes, not sleeping pills though, but meds for anxiety. Was he acting weird before he died? No, he just went out to buy some milk and never came home. She reported him missing a couple days ago, and they just found his body.  
  
She says he's been a clean freak lately, though. Never used to do his share of chores, then he starts doing the dishes and tidying up out of nowhere.  
  
She gets antsy and cagey pretty soon. Says she has company coming over, asks how long we're going to be in her apartment. We leave. As usual, I give her my number and say to call if she has any more info or questions.  
  
Rune and I wait on a park bench across the street from the apartment complex, to stake the place out. I think Rachel was lying about having company.  
  
I'm glad I have the bottle, because I'm getting hunger pangs again. Even though it's broad daylight on a busy street, I get that crazy predator urge to feed on Rune again. I take the edge off by sipping the bottle slowly for an hour, but I already know I'm gonna have to hunt soon.  
  
I could ask to bite the party every so often, sure. Except my dark vampire magic or whatever made my bite get worse over the years. It used to be pretty quick and painless, just nip a shot here or there. Now it just about puts you in the hospital no matter how I try to reign it in. Plus I barely know them, and I haven't done anything to deserve that kind of favor yet.  
  
Jacob and Tracy get back. They pull into the apartment parking lot. We go over to meet up.  
  
"So my mom texted me the directions for a spell," Jacob says, "to reveal hidden shapeshifters, if that's what it is. It'll come in handy later, even if it's not a shapeshifter this time. I need time to learn it, though. We should also all get silver weapons, just in case."  
  
"Oh! I have one! That knife I found!" Rune says.  
  
Just then, a smoking hot babe in a red dress walks up to the apartment building. Everyone except Jacob turns to watch her go by. Rune bites her lip a little.  
  
"Okay, so, she wasn't lying about having company over," I say. "And she has good taste."  
  
"I am surrounded by useless lesbians," Jacob sighs.  
  
"Hey," Rune says, "I'm bisexual, thank you very much."  
  
"Anyway, I'm going to try something now. It's a scrying spell. You didn't get to look around the place this time, so I want to see if there's anything you missed. But if something goes wrong, and I don't come back as myself, cut my head off."  
  
"Whoa, hey now," Tracy says.  
  
"I'm going to write something down." Jacob pulls out some scrap paper and scribbles something on it. "When I get back, if I don't say what's on this paper, then you have to kill me, because something took over my body."  
  
"Okay, wait," I say. "First of all, we don't have any way to cut your head off."  
  
"There's a sword in the trunk."  
  
"Th-- Okay. Second of all, if I'm gonna kill you, I can do it a lot... cleaner, than that."  
  
He shrugs. We pass around the paper. It's just a date: June 22nd.  
  
He pulls out a water bottle, and does some magic ritual. Ice floats up outta the bottle and freezes over his eyes like frosty glasses. I really hope it's not saltwater this time, or that's going to sting like a bitch.  
  
After a few minutes, the ice melts off, back into the bottle. Jacob looks instantly tense as he comes back. "June 22nd. She's dead. Rachel's dead. She's been dead -- Her body's in the bathroom. She was strangled. You weren't talking to the real Rachel."  
  
Several creepy thoughts at the same time:  
  
Rune and I were alone and unarmed with the monster. If we tried to look in the bathroom, it might've killed us too.  
  
I gave the monster my phone number.  
  
It saw our faces. And we have no idea if it can only turn into people it's killed, or anyone it's ever seen.  
  
The monster pretending to be Rachel might have her memories. It knew about Jason Kimble in detail, enough to pretend to be him for a week without anyone noticing something was off, except that he started cleaning house. Not even his coworkers noticed. If you took any random person and had them pretend to be an accountant for a week, everyone else would notice they turned into a shitty accountant overnight.  
  
Maybe it doesn't, maybe it's already good at math, or acting, maybe it spied on people first, maybe it faked being Rachel because it lived with her for a week. Too many maybes.  
  
I realize something else.  
  
"Oh, shit," I say. "Rachel's date doesn't know."  
  
We jump outta the car and run for the building, splitting up to cover the elevator and all the stairs. I bang on the door once we get up there, yelling, "FBI!" No answer. I try the knob, it's locked, I kick the door in.  
  
The woman in the red dress is dead on the sofa, freshly-strangled, and the window at the back of the apartment is open. I jump out onto the fire escape, and feel stupid again for missing another escape route.  
  
I lean over the railing to look up and down -- we're on a middle floor -- when Rune jumps out too, going so fast she body checks me over the side. I miss the railing and fall a floor down before I catch the next one. Inertia swings me under it to slam into the stairs below.  
  
"Okay!" I yell up, as I climb onto the landing. "I'll search down here!"  
  
Rune's already racing upstairs with her baseball bat. I don't like splitting up, but too late now.  
  
As soon as I get to the bottom, I hear Rune shout for help. "Ah, crap." And I'm running back up.  
  
Jacob and Tracy, who went out front to try cutting the shapeshifter off, must've heard Rune too, and we all get upstairs in time to miss it. Again. Rune's lying on the roof, bleeding fast from a head injury. Jacob rushes over to try to patch her up, using his water magic to control the blood and slow the bleeding.  
  
I run to the edge and look down. Broken window below us. Jacob magics up a swirly-slide of ice, and I slide on down and fly into the window of an empty, unlived-in apartment. The front door's open. I don't wanna get ambushed from the back, so I look in the rooms quickly first, then run out to the hall.  
  
Back to the first dilemma: Two stairwells and one elevator, and no way to know where the monster went. I book it down the closest stairs until I get to the street. Too many people, cars coming and going, just too crowded to spot anyone out of place.  
  
I go back to the car and sit on the hood to wait for the others. After a while, they get back. Tracy looks sick and freaked-out. Jacob's helping support Rune. Her face is all covered with blood on one side, but it looks stable now, bandaged up. I'm just relieved she's alive, after I let her wander right into the monster's ambush.  
  
"Rune!" I stand up. "I'm sorry. Are you --"  
  
Jacob moves between us and holds an arm out to block me.  
  
I back off, hands raised, then stick 'em in my pockets and turn away. "Right. Yeah."  
  
Not a trustworthy guardian, remember? Especially around bleeding kids.  
  
Tracy snaps out of her distant look. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! We fucked up! Those people are dead! They died, on our watch, we didn't save anyone!"  
  
Nobody says anything. She looks around at us. "Doesn't that bother you guys?!"  
  
Jacob says, "I've been doing this for fifteen years. People die all the time."  
  
"But their corpses were right in front of us!"  
  
"Wouldn't be the first time," I say.  
  
"I don't mean like in the morgue!" she says.  
  
"Mm. That too."  
  
"Rune almost died!"  
  
"Yeah. Well. That's the part that really bothers me," I say. "I didn't know those other people. They're just strangers to me."  
  
It's kinda true. Yeah it bothers me, but like Jacob said, people die all the time. When you're fifty-five, monster hunter or not, you know people who died. It just doesn't help to obsess over every random dead person. So I don't think about it.  
  
Tracy gives us both this angry, disgusted, suspicious look. "What's the password?! Whisper it to Rune!"  
  
As if any of what I said is weird for me. She thinks a lot higher of me than she should.  
  
"June 22nd," I say without moving. "And the passwords might not work anyway. I think the shapeshifter takes their memories."  
  
She grumbles and curses, and says something about having a trailer she got a hold of nearby (from an internet friend, I think. Maybe Dylan) where we can patch up Rune. I say maybe we should get her to a hospital instead. Tracy says we can't keep taking Rune to hospitals, because it looks too suspicious, and people might catch on to us (and Rune's probably a missing person, and we're technically kidnapping her by letting her travel with us).  
  
So we get Rune to this trailer infirmary. Tracy helps fix her up and doesn't really talk to me or Jacob anymore.  
  
Once I'm alone with him, I ask, "What's June 22nd?"  
  
He looks uncomfortable, kinda pained, looking around everywhere except at me. He doesn't say anything, just reaches into his shirt and pulls up a little chain necklace with a diamond engagement ring on it.  
  
Oh shit. His fiancee died. I just stepped into some super awkward territory.  
  
We stand there for like a minute without saying anything. I'm curious but it's not my business. I panic a little, say, "Good talk," shoot him double fingerguns, and turn around to walk away.  
  
\---  
  
It takes Rune three days to heal up in Tracy's trailer infirmary. Tracy doesn't seem interested in chatting. Jacob just wanders off and doesn't come back the whole time. Nobody wants me alone with Rune. Fair enough.  
  
It's a good time to hunt. Big cities are good for this. I snoop around in local papers, listen out for rumors and stuff, looking for the usual: Shitheads who shouldn't be around anymore. Usually it's sex offenders who got off the hook.  
  
Sometimes I have to settle. I find a guy named Alvin Johnson who's been accused of beating his wife. I keep looking, but I can't find any better leads. I can't find any better proof either.  
  
I'm very hungry. And it's either him or someone in the party. That's not an option. I can't risk hurting them. Especially Rune.  
  
I find Alvin home alone. I grab him, bite his wrist, he doesn't struggle for long. If I kill someone, I don't drag it out or torture them. I take out my knife and slash his wrist up to hide the bite and make it look like a suicide. I take some money out of his wallet, and put his wallet back where it was.  
  
I head back to meet up with the party again. Jacob's back, Rune's fine, Tracy's gone. She drove off in the trailer once Rune got better. She left her gun behind, with a few clips of silver bullets. Rune doesn't want it, Jacob doesn't need it, so I take it.  
  
Tracy also left behind a note, some intel she got from Dylan: The woman in the red dress was spotted on the arm of a celebrity... after we found her body. John Clayton's the guy. Big-wig action movie star who's staying in Vegas.  
  
Jacob gets a spell from his mom, it can reveal hidden shapeshifters, but you have to be close enough to see it in person. So we still need to know where it's hiding before we can flush it out. We dig up Clayton's penthouse address.  
  
We go to the penthouse. We split up on the stairs and elevators again. I find the fire escape ahead of time. We don't run into anybody on the way up.  
  
We get to the door. The others spread out to the sides where the peephole can't see them. I bang on the door, yell "FBI!", raise my foot when there's no answer. Jacob waves at me to stop and motions to try the door.  
  
I try the door. Unlocked. Damn. Kinda wanted to kick another door in.  
  
I burst in with my gun drawn anyway. I hear a voice from behind a door in the hallway. I can't make it out. Rune sneaks by and crouches on the other side, against the wall next to the door, to listen in to it.  
  
Whatever it was, I never find out. The door opens. John Clayton's tied to a chair in the bedroom. John Clayton is standing next to him, holding a gun to his (in-a-chair) head.  
  
"Hey," I say. "Put the gun down."  
  
"Ah, but without a hostage, you'll just kill me," Standing Clayton says.  
  
Jacob starts muttering a spell out in the hall. I try to stall for time.  
  
"Yeah. You're dead no matter what. I just don't want him to die, too." I nod at Sitting Clayton. "Why did you kill all those other people?"  
  
"I thought it was obvious," Standing Clayton says. "For their money."  
  
"Okay. So you're just a gold-digger who also turns into people."  
  
"Basically. But you know what else I am? An actor. And I'd say I'm a pretty damn good one. I had everyone fooled, even people like you who call yourself professional monster hunters."  
  
"Sure. So why not just go into acting?"  
  
"But I am. That's exactly what I'm doing. You see, John Clayton is popular, but he's terrible. He makes terrible decisions, stars in terrible movies, puts on a terrible show. They're just so tacky, so cheesy!"  
  
"What's wrong with cheesy?" I say, a little defensively.  
  
"They're like Sharknado! They just play to the lowest common denominator." Standing Clayton sighs. "I can do so much better. So I'm going to take this two-bit hack and turn him into something great. I'm giving him a better legacy than he could've ever built on his own, don't you see?"  
  
"Nope." I open fire.  
  
Everything goes crazy at once. I pull the trigger, the shapeshifter pulls the trigger, Jacob jumps down the hallway and throws a spell, ice freezes the shapeshifter's gun, the bullet shatters the ice but doesn't hit Clayton's head, the shapeshifter whips the gun around and shoots me in the chest instead.  
  
I fall back and Rune jumps past me with her bat swinging, Jacob tries to stop or shield her with a wall of ice (same thing really) as the shifter keeps shooting. I keep shooting from the floor, the shifter's getting hit by everyone but not slowing down. It's a tanned, coiffured, swiss cheese juggernaut.  
  
It rushes me before I can stand, puts its gun to my forehead, glaring down the barrel like it thinks that'll scare me. We have guns at each other's heads, nobody moving for one full second, but it doesn't realize I'm a shitty kinda headshot hostage since I'm not a human either.  
  
We shoot at the same time. My head slams back against the floor as a bullet blasts through it. Hurts like a bitch. I feel cool, clear fluid leaking out both sides of my head. Same stuff leaking out of my chest wounds. It's what I got instead of blood.  
  
The shapeshifter falls back dead. It dissolves into a dark puddle.  
  
Jacob checks the hostage. "He's dead."  
  
"But you stopped the bullet!" I say. "Didn't you?"  
  
"I did. He wasn't shot. He was already dead."  
  
I get up. "You mean the monster held a dead guy hostage in a stand-off?!"  
  
I'm mad we were too late and let another guy die, and mad we actually fell for the ruse.  
  
"We should go," Jacob says. "People definitely heard all that gunfire, and we're alone in John Clayton's apartment with his dead body and the real murderer doesn't exist anymore. They're not going to buy our FBI covers if they do any real digging."  
  
"Ah, crap. Okay. Come on, this way," I say, and we get the hell outta there.  
  
We recuperate and catch the news on a TV somewhere else in town. John Clayton's death is the biggest local story, of course. Alvin Johnson (the snack of the week) gets a footnote, ruled as a suicide. Nobody comments. I dunno if they even remember that bit. Good.


	3. Inpatient Therapy

  
The "guy killed by a giant spider" lead is the closest one after Vegas, so we're off to Ashland, Kansas.  
  
We stop at this place called the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. Rune begs us to buy her cans of spray paint first. We head out there and it's this line of ten old Cadillacs half-buried in the middle of the desert, stuck tailfins-up. They're already covered in graffiti. Rune runs over and starts spray-painting with glee. It's the happiest I've ever seen her so far.  
  
There's a bunch of other cans lying around. I find a purple one that's not totally empty yet and put a smiley face on the side of a tire.  
  
Rune also always has us stop at every small-town diner and get her milkshakes. We'd probably get places a lot faster if we didn't, but I don't care.  
  
By now Jacob's hair dye is all washed out, which I didn't know was hair dye at first -- it was black when I met him. Now it's faded to brown. Rune's still got her blue hair, and has been going through the pack of temporary tattoos as we go.  
  
At some point at some rest-stop in the country, I combine maintenance with showing off. Since my own knife can't hurt me, shaving's a breeze. I sit down on a picnic bench, roll up my pant legs, whip out the knife and go to town like I'm trying to whittle spears. Boom, instantly smooth legs and no nicks, and no water or shaving cream needed.  
  
Jacob's shaving nearby. He looks over, just goes, "...Okay..." and keeps shaving while looking away.  
  
Rune's impressed. For a second I think it's cool she thinks that's cool. Then she pulls out her knife and rolls up her jeans.  
  
"Wait. No --"  
  
Too late. Skins her shin like a potato. Good thing Jacob knows first aid.  
  
We finally get to Ashland, and the second we pass the town border, something weird happens. I smell strong, fresh blood just for a second. Rune and Jacob look around like they smelled or heard something too.  
  
"Did you smell that? Is that blood?" I ask. "Are you guys hurt?"  
  
They both mutter about being fine. They're obviously not fine, but there's no smell and no blood, so whatever. Nothing important I guess.  
  
Ashland is another stupidly small town. There is one motel. We park, go in, there's one guy in the front room reading a newspaper, one person behind the desk. We ask for a room. No vacancies. We turn to leave.  
  
"I took the last room," the guy says.  
  
We look at him. He's kinda short for a guy, kinda hefty, stocky, wearing flannel. Long black hair, full face of black facial hair, kinda golden kinda monolid eyes, kinda pointed ears. Looks like if an elf and a dwarf from Lord of the Rings had a baby and raised him as a lumberjack.  
  
"You can stay in it," he says. "I've been waiting here to meet you."  
  
Oh, shit. He's a fed, a real one. They caught on to us, found out where we were going, tracked us down and headed us off at the pass. Has to be. Everyone looks tense, instantly.  
  
"I've been sent to help her, specifically." He points at Rune.  
  
Jacob and I get between them immediately. Now I'm thinking, shit, he's with CPS, he's gonna take her away, and we'll get arrested for kidnapping.  
  
"Who the fuck are you?" Rune says.  
  
"Ah. Sorry. I'm Marcus Goldenbaum."  
  
"And who says I need your help?"  
  
"He called me." Marcus points at Jacob. Everyone looks at Jacob, who looks confused on top of unhappy.  
  
"I have no idea who you are," Jacob says.  
  
I lean over to ask quietly, "Did your parents send back-up after you talked to them in Vegas?"  
  
Marcus answers even though I didn't ask him. "No, no, I wasn't sent by the government or anyone."  
  
"So how did I 'call' you?" Jacob says.  
  
"I don't know. You just did."  
  
"Mhm. So who did send you?"  
  
"God."  
  
"Which god?"  
  
"I don't know. The god? The one I serve. I was sent to protect her, because she's important somehow." Another point at Rune.  
  
"Is this a bad time to mention I'm pagan?" she says.  
  
"Yes," Marcus says. "It is."  
  
"Well, I don't need some crazy stranger inviting me to his room and telling me 'god' sent him."  
  
"Look, you can all just take the room, alright? I don't need it, I just needed to make sure I met you. By the way, what's your name?"  
  
"I'm sorry," Jacob says, "you're allegedly here for her, and you don't even know who she is?"  
  
"I know who she is, I just don't know her name," Marcus says.  
  
"It's Rune, and you don't know anything about me."  
  
I finally say something. "Do you know anything about a spider giant monster that killed a guy?"  
  
"Oh, so that's what it was?" Marcus says. "I just skimmed the article. So no."  
  
"Did you see or hear anything weird when you came into town?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Then you don't have any useful information. Are you at least useful in a fight?"  
  
"Oh, yes. I have magic. Divine magic. And a flaming sword. Want to see?"  
  
"Let's not do this inside?" Jacob says.  
  
We go into the parking lot. Marcus grabs at thin air by his waist, and pulls out a flaming sword. We all step back.  
  
"Okay. Are you willing to help us fight a monster?" I ask.  
  
"I have to protect Rune, so yes."  
  
"Good enough."  
  
Jacob pulls me aside, talking quietly. "I don't think we can trust him."  
  
I shrug. "We can use him as bait."  
  
"Hey, uh," Marcus calls to the group, since everyone's already walked away from him by now, "Let's all go to McDonald's to talk? My treat."  
  
We agree. We go to the one McD's in town. The milkshake machine is broken. Rune stares bitterly out the window at a diner across the street.  
  
We set down the paper, and other info, that we have so far. The case goes: A man named Leonard Hart was out with some friends, when suddenly a giant spider jumped out of an alleyway and killed him in front of them. Four witnesses all saying the same thing. Nobody officially believes them.  
  
"Okay, so. This seems -- I guess it's just a giant spider," I say.  
  
"What if it's another shapeshifter?" Rune says.  
  
"So like a were-spider? Or just a regular shapeshifter who decided to turn into a spider? I guess we don't know if they can actually do that or not..."  
  
We theorize about things like a dark wizard summoning evil minions, a freak magic spell enlarging local wildlife, or just a regular giant spider, maybe nesting in an abandoned mine or something.  
  
We do the usual pretending-to-be-FBI thing, I call the cops to get the names and numbers of the witnesses. We decide to go down the list alphabetically. The first guy is a Colonel Andrews. First name... Jacob.  
  
"So we call Jacob first. Jacob, do you have Jacob's number?" Rune says.  
  
He looks pained. "No."  
  
I laugh. "It's okay. I'll give Jacob Jacob's number. Here, Jacob. It's Jacob's. Call Jacob, Jacob."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
Jacob (Andrews) doesn’t answer. He moves on to Chloe Palitus, Maureen Rivera, and Randall Tower. Chloe and Maureen agree to meet us – Maureen at the diner, Chloe at her apartment. Randall doesn’t answer either.  
  
"Finally we can go to the fucking diner!" Rune says, looking at Marcus, as she gets up to leave. "Fuck McDonald's and fuck your god!"  
  
\---  
  
Jacob and I wait in the diner booth in our FBI suits. Marcus and Rune sit in the booth behind us. She finally gets her milkshake.  
  
Maureen shows up. We introduce ourselves with fake names as usual. Jacob's using a new one this time, I just keep 'Renard Van Ness'.  
  
We ask her what happened. We give a disclaimer that we believe her, and want to hear the facts, not just what the cops say. It reassures her.  
  
She tells us she, Leonard, and the other witnesses are/were all in the same therapy group, for treating phobias and anxieties. Turns out Leonard was arachnophobic. Convenient. So a big spider just jumped out of an alleyway while they were all walking down the street together, and it killed him right in front of everyone.  
  
Just to eliminate the possibility it's a real giant spider, and that there's a big nest of giant spiders somewhere, I ask about any other weird local wildlife things happening, abandoned mines, caves, sewers, whatever. Nothing.  
  
We get the name of the doctor who runs the group (Dr. Thomas Lark), and the hospital he works at. I give her my number and tell her to call if anything else weird happens.  
  
Before she leaves, I ask her what she's in the group for. She says a blood phobia.  
  
Jacob and I go to Chloe's house next. We have pretty much the same conversation there. She's got a water phobia.  
  
We decide to visit the Colonel in person next, even though he never picked up the phone. Turns out he lives in Maureen's apartment building. He's an old man with six locks on his door. Peeps out to see our badges before unlocking to let us in.  
  
Same story from him, but he doesn't have a real phobia. He's got PTSD.  
  
"What from?" I ask.  
  
"War. Vietnam. I'm a veteran."  
  
I pause. "Oh. Uh. Oh, did -- What unit?"  
  
He tells me. Not familiar. "Okay. Thank you for your time, and, uh, for your service."  
  
As we're walking back to the car, Jacob asks me, "Are you okay? You got a little weird back there."  
  
"Oh. I'm fine. I just -- My dad died in 'Nam. I was hoping they met, I guess."  
  
He looks uncomfortable. "Oh. I'm sorry."  
  
I shrug. "It's fine. I barely knew him. I was really young, so I barely even remember him."  
  
"You look pretty good for your age."  
  
"I do? I mean, thanks. I should, since I stopped aging."  
  
"No, that..." He sighs. "I was trying to make a joke. Of course you look young for someone who's old enough to have been a young child when your dad fought in Vietnam."  
  
"Oh. Yeah," I say. "It is funny you say it though. I looked like this even before I got turned. I basically looked like this since I was a teenager? A boy asked me out once because I looked old enough to get us into an R-rated movie without getting carded... Anyway. Do you think it's one of the patients doing this, or the doctor?"  
  
"Definitely the doctor."  
  
We get back to find Rune in the car alone, playing on her game thing. Marcus walked off somewhere. We wait around for him, since nobody has his phone number. I look through the local papers while we wait, trying to find any local scumbags I can feed on.  
  
Marcus finally shows up, looking like he got in a fight. Turns out he did. Giant spider jumped him too, so he chopped it up with his fire sword. Says it dissolved into black oozy-looking smoke that vanished without a trace. Not quite like the shapeshifter, but close, it sounds like.  
  
I get a weird feeling about Marcus. It's been nagging me the whole time. If something's making people's fears and anxieties come to life, well, this guy's pretty conveniently hitting a lot of my buttons already. And he's just super conveniently the only one who saw the spider for himself, killed it when nobody was looking, and it conveniently didn't leave any evidence behind. Okay.  
  
I don't wanna think about what kinda anxieties he's representing. So I don't think about it.  
  
We brainstorm, wondering who the culprit is. Probably Lark, maybe something else, like something haunting the hospital maybe. Maybe Randall, since we haven't talked to him. The others say he doesn't have a phobia either, just really paranoid in general, lashes out at everyone a lot.  
  
We go back to Maureen and the Colonel's apartment, park outside, Jacob does some scrying on Maureen first. He suddenly snaps out of it and says, "We have to get in there right now."  
  
Everyone jumps outta the car and makes a run for it. Marcus tries to get in front of Rune, Rune yells at him and tries to get past, Jacob and I run around them.  
  
I do the usual. Bang on the door, yell, no answer, kick the door open. We run in and stop, because shit's overwhelming. The place is completely covered, top to bottom, wall to wall, with blood. Real, fresh, hot blood, and bodies, slashed up bodies lying everywhere. Maureen's in the corner, freaking out with a gun in her hand.  
  
Jacob spooks. It's not normal, something happened to him, but I don't have time to think about it because I can't handle this either. All that smell of blood makes me go feral in seconds. I pounce on the closest corpse and latch on, drinking as fast as I can, not thinking of anything else.  
  
The others show up, there's some yelling, some talking. Once I'm full, I get a hold of myself, jump up, wipe my mouth off, back away from the others feeling embarrassed. Rune mouths, "What the fuck?" to me over Maureen's shoulder; the girl's holding her, comforting her. The gun's away somewhere else by now.  
  
Marcus doesn't mouth it, he yells, "What the fuck?!" and draws his flaming sword on me. Great! Not how I wanted him to find out I'm a vampire -- Chowing down on the first fresh body I trip over, like a starving dog in a bowl of kibble.  
  
"Hey, Van can't help what they are," Jacob says.  
  
Marcus glares, grumbles, puts away his sword. By now all the bodies and blood vanish. They dissolve and disappear into nothing, just like Marcus said the spider did. Okay, so that part was true. I still feel full, so this stuff's real enough to effect us, even after it disappears.  
  
Maureen's already fainted. We get her to the car, drive her to the hotel. Jacob wards the room to keep her and Rune safe. Now that we know the monsters aren't actually spiders and shit, he wards it against 'constructs' in general.  
  
So now we know something, or someone, is conjuring up people's worst fears to try to kill them. Or in Maureen's case, make them kill themselves.  
  
I don't want to think about what would make me do that to myself.  
  
Everything I do, every rule I follow for myself, every choice I make, is to keep myself up and running. Don't even wanna speculate what would make me take all that back in a moment, and just give up and die.  
  
So I don't think about it.  
  
\---  
  
Jacob goes off to study at the library. Marcus and I go check up on Chloe next.  
  
It got to Chloe already. Her house is filled with water when we arrive. Like opening a door right out onto the ocean. Jacob’s ice magic would come in handy. It’s fine, I don’t need to breathe, so I jump in to get her out before she drowns. Marcus heals her. Of course he does. I mean. It’s a good thing. But still.  
  
We drop her off at the hotel with Maureen and Rune. Meet up with Jacob.  
  
It’s a fear monster.  
  
Okay. We can deal with it. Somehow. We don’t know its weakness yet, but we have to confront it before it goes after someone else, because we can’t just keep racing around this town trying to save every person it might attack first.  
  
So we head to the hospital to confront Dr. Lark.  
  
We march right in, go upstairs, and kick in his office door. I don’t know what happens next exactly. We just fall into darkness. Sounds cliche as hell, whatever. It’s a bottomless pit. Phone’s broken from the water, can’t use the flashlight app.  
  
I fall into the hospital basement. Machines and storage. I head upstairs.  
  
I already know I’m not in the real hospital. The hallway’s too long. There’s supposed to be more doors, and noise: Carts, trays, intercoms. It’s quiet. Smells real though. Bleachy. Clean linoleum. Hate it.  
  
I run for the only door, but not too fast, ‘cause I don’t want to look like I’m freaking out. I’m just jogging at it. I’m in a hurry to get out of here but not like I can be bothered to hurry any more than that.  
  
And I start getting tired, which I’m not supposed to get. I don’t get tired. I don’t have to breathe, but I’m breathing heavily, panting. I’m just tired all over. I haven’t been tired and out of breath for forever. I’m trying to stay up and moving. I flop against a wall. Have to catch my breath for a second.  
  
Since things are weird, and I’m breathing, I check to see if I have blood now too. Nope. Good. My hands are still – There are no veins. No pulse. Okay. I still have an instinct to check my blood sugar. Stupid.  
  
I get out the door and then I do have a pulse, and I’m not me – No, I’m me. Old me. Or, young me. Between five and eight. Little weak human me, out of breath, throwing up in the hallway, and there’s blood in it, and it’s mine. I’m weak and dizzy, and it’s hard to see because my vision’s blurry and the lights seem too bright, and my sunglasses are gone. I’m not in my suit anymore, I’m in a hospital gown, and the floor is cold and my feet hurt.  
  
Yeah, I remember this. It’s when we first found out I’m diabetic. Or when we first found out how bad it could get if we didn’t keep on top of it – I think I was sneaking candy behind my grandparents’ backs, and I got a cold or something from a kid at school, and it fucked me up all together.  
  
So, we’re back in our worst memories. Or the scariest ones. Fine. Whatever. Make me eat my words when I said I didn’t have any phobias. I don’t have phobias. I just have shit I don’t like and don’t want to think about. That’s different.  
  
Except then I notice I’m not in a memory, because this isn’t how it was. My grandparents aren’t here. Nobody’s here, except someone in one of the two beds.  
  
It’s Rune.  
  
I run over to check on her. She’s unconscious, but alive.  
  
Then a hand’s on my shoulder. I turn around and there’s Dr. Thomas Lark. I never saw him before, but I recognize him anyway. He’s smiling. Creep.  
  
“What are you doing out of bed, Vanessa?”  
  
I don’t use my full name much anymore, and I never used it around him. It reminds me of back then, and something about just that… Like a needle.  
  
So - great. I’m a first-grader, I’m unarmed, barely dressed, and this creepy man who knows my name has his hand on me. Great.  
  
I don’t play along. I’m not her anymore. It’s just fake. An illusion. An illusion that could totally kill me, but I’m not going to act like a kid who got busted sneaking out of bed.  
  
God, he just keeps smiling. Getting a real kick out of looking down at me.  
  
“Most people have boring fears when it comes to disease,” he says. “Most diseases aren’t so interesting. But you really gave me a lot to work with, didn’t you, Vanessa? Most people just get sick, and they either get over it, or they die. But you just kept getting sicker, and sicker, and sicker.”  
  
I want to know how he knows my past. How long he’s been around. How much he’s been involved in before.  
  
“How old are you?” I ask.  
  
“Oh, I’m very old. I’m ancient.”  
  
“And you can give people diseases. You can make diseases.”  
  
“I didn’t invent them. But I can create them in people, yes.”  
  
“And you can kill people that way.”  
  
“I can. And I have.”  
  
There’s someone I want to ask about, but I also don’t want to. So I just keep it about me. “Did you do this to me? In the first place?”  
  
“Oh, no. That’s just bad luck and genetics.”  
  
Good enough. I don’t want to ask about anyone else anymore. I ask him what he wants.  
  
“Well, you have two choices,” he says.  
  
He gestures at Rune, and she starts to bleed. I see the blood, but it doesn’t make me hungry like usual. It’s weird. Almost kinda relieving. I don’t want to go all horror movie demon kid on her.  
  
“Either you kill Rune,” Lark says, happily, but calmly, the way a guy talks when he knows he holds all the cards. “Or you can get in the other bed, and you can go back to being the sick little girl. Only this time, you stay sick forever.”  
  
Everything about that just punches me all the way down through my gut. I don’t want to think about it. I’ve been free for thirty-five years.  
  
So I punch him. Or I try to. He just catches my hand and twists my arm back until something sprains while he scolds me. It’s worse. Wish he’d just punch me back like a real fight. Just reminds me I’m not anywhere close to even footing here. I’m not even allowed to get pissed off.  
  
He lets me go before breaking anything, and just waits, and smiles, and tells me to choose. I go through a few things in a few seconds:  
  
Wanna run, but it’s a bad idea, he’ll catch me, and Rune’s here so I can’t leave.  
  
Can’t let Rune die, but I’ve let people die before, I’ve killed people before, and maybe when we were strangers, or maybe with someone else I would’ve just so I could stay me and not be this creep’s prisoner.  
  
And I wonder how she’d die here, because I’m not really a vampire right now, so either he’d make me one again and I’d eat her, or he’d give her all my diseases. What’s worse? Remembering murdering her myself, or knowing how long and painful it’d be if I didn’t?  
  
I don’t kill kids though. I don’t help a lot of people if it doesn’t help me, but if I have to kill, I try to kill people who at least kinda deserve it. She doesn’t. And if I did, then I couldn’t handle that memory. I couldn’t go back to the group. Hell, Jacob and Marcus would kill me on the spot and I’d probably just let them.  
  
“This isn’t real, right? She’s not really here,” I say, because I want to believe it.  
  
“It’s real enough, Vanessa.”  
  
He already killed one person here, and almost two more. Just real enough is just real enough.  
  
But looking at the empty bed makes me feel like some people feel at the edge of a cliff, or looking at spiders, or a deep ocean when they can’t swim. I think about what’ll happen. Maybe I’ll lose my vampirism for real, as adult-me, and I’ll die instantly from kidney failure, and that’s… fine.  
  
It’s not really fine, but I’ve been here fifty-five years, and I got to be mostly happy for most of that, so whatever, I had a good run. Rune’s just a kid. She hasn’t done anything yet. She hasn’t had a chance yet.  
  
Or I actually go back to being six or seven. I wake up in a bed, human and small again, except now all my family’s dead and nobody’s here to pay for my health care. So I’d be a leech on Jacob (if he’d put up with that shit, but why would he bother if I’m not monster hunting?)… or Lark. Lark would take over and I’d just be stuck here. Blood tests and insulin and pills forever. Everything in my body dying off. Neuropathy. Dialysis. Wheelchair. Fuck.  
  
I got shot in the head the other week, so like, pain doesn’t matter, but that bed’s a prison sentence more than a death sentence, and that’s worse. 'Bye dance clubs for good. Not like Uncle Chuck’s coming to save me this time.  
  
But yeah, it’s me or Rune, and I wouldn’t wish it on her either.  
  
So I get on the bed. Lie down. Try to pretend I’m not actually totally terrified here, 'cause I don’t know how I’m going to wake up, or if I’m going to. Did you know a lot of diabetics just slip away in their sleep? You don’t wake up easily when your glucose crashes. Used to terrify me. I was kind of an insomniac. Now I figure that’s an easy way to go out, if I’m gonna go right here and now.  
  
That was more thinking in like, ten seconds, than I do in most whole weeks.  
  
Lark walks over. Pets my hair and calls me a good girl. Ugh, ugh, UGH. Just let me croak in peace, fucker.  
  
He picks up my arm and puts in an I.V. It’s the first time I feel a needle in forever. I’m not looking at any of this, and definitely not looking at him.  
  
And I’m out.  
  
Then I’m in a chair. Adult, vampire, suit, glasses, gun, good. First thing I do is check my pulse, and thank god I don’t have one anymore. Then I think: I have to make sure my hands are working, 'cause at the end (the real end, the first time) my nerves were dying. I take out my braid, and braid it again. I know Marcus and Jacob are there. I don’t look at them. I kinda side-eye ‘em, but that’s another thing sunglasses are good for.  
  
They’re both looking bad too. After a while Lark shows up in the empty chair. Not Rune. Not good.  
  
Jacob tries to do his magic scrying thing to check on Rune, and he flips the hell out, so that’s even worse, but we don’t get a chance to ask what happened to her, before Lark starts grilling us. He wants to know about our visions. It’s time to share.  
  
Great. So the monster’s M.O. is non-optional group therapy sessions.  
  
I try to get up a few times. No go. Keep reappearing in the chair.  
  
Jacob digs his heels in. He’s not talking. He shoots magic at the Lark-monster. Can’t tell if it does any good, but Lark doesn’t seem bothered.  
  
Only one way out of here. Not like my past is a secret. It just sucks so I don’t think about it, and nobody asks anyway.  
  
“Okay, fine,” I say. “I was in the hospital. I was a kid again. It was my first trip to the ICU for diabetic ketoacidosis.”  
  
He smiles. “I must say, you’re a fascinating case. A vampire who’s afraid of disease.”  
  
I never thought about it like that before, and some guy telling me things about myself just pisses me off even more. I can’t even stand up and pace around, just gotta sit there, right next to him, with him smiling at me with his stupid smug face I’m not allowed to punch.  
  
“I’m not,” I say.  
  
"But you are.”  
  
“How can I be afraid of something that can’t really happen? I’m a vampire now. I’m never getting sick again.”  
  
“I think as we all saw from my other patients, phobias don’t necessarily have to be rational.”  
  
I cross my arms and just play it cool. “Fine. Whatever. I’m scared of disease. Happy?”  
  
“Oh, I am. I’m very happy.” He beams around at the others. “See? We’re making progress.”  
  
\---  
  
So here I am, a vampire, sitting in a fear monster's group therapy circle, in some otherwise featureless void.  
  
I just told Jacob and Marcus my vision. Jacob drills icy little holes into Lark's face with his eyes. And also a literal icy hole, with his ice magic. Doesn’t do much good.  
  
"All you have to do is share," Lark says. "Tell your friends what you saw."  
  
"Never," Jacob says.  
  
"I'll go next," Marcus says.  
  
Lark turns to him.  
  
"I was back in my old life, before I was called," Marcus says. "I was a janitor."  
  
"Mmhm?"  
  
"And it was the day where I was called, in real life. But in the vision, nothing happened. I just went on with my day, and went home, did nothing, and went to bed secretly hoping I wouldn't wake up in the morning."  
  
"Mhm. Mhm," Lark says. "You were an interesting case, too. Fearing the loss of yourself. Your faith. Your divine mission is basically your entire identity, isn't it? I had to get creative in representing something as abstract as being afraid your god has abandoned you, or never existed in the first place."  
  
I kinda feel guilty thinking Marcus was just some crazy guy, or even thinking he was connected to Lark. I dunno if I really believe in whatever Marcus thinks his god is, but he believes in it, and I've seen his powers at work. Faith is like fear: Just real enough is just real enough.  
  
So we look at Jacob. He's the last one left. Ice magic's a good fit for him, because he's frozen over here. That's a glacier he's not letting Lark melt.  
  
"C'mon, Jacob. Just tell us whatever it was," I say. "It's our best bet to get out of here. We can't hurt this thing."  
  
Jacob doesn't look at us. He just glares at Lark. Lark just smiles back.  
  
"Is it really that difficult, Jacob?" Lark says.  
  
"I'm not doing a thing a monster like you wants us to. You kill people. You've killed people in this town."  
  
"Tell you what. If you tell your friends what you saw, I'll leave this town alone. I'll pack up my things and move on."  
  
"To kill people somewhere else? No. If the only way we're leaving is by talking, then I'll stay silent forever if it means keeping you here."  
  
Oh hell no. "Jacob," I say. "I do not like being trapped."  
  
He still keeps his eyes on Lark. "I'll make you a deal. You let my friends go, and you keep me. You can keep me here forever. I'm never talking."  
  
"Are you really the one in a position to be making deals, Jacob? I already made you an offer. So I'll make you a new deal. You stay here, and since you won't tell your friends what you saw, I'll have them see it for themselves."  
  
Lark snaps his fingers, and I'm gone again.  
  
I wake up in a bed, and I know it's an apartment in New York. My brain scrambles around trying to fit together what I know and remember, and what's getting shoved into my head, like a weird dream where you know the whole backstory before it starts.  
  
I dunno. I see some familiar skyscrapers out the window, and I know it's New York, because I lived here before.  
  
My ex isn't in my bed though. Jacob's is. I know it's his ex, except I also know they're not exes yet. For a second I wanna run like hell, because waking up naked with a man is pretty much next on my list of nightmares. Just for a second though. Because I'm not me. I'm Jacob.  
  
Yeah, it's weird as fuck. I'm not in control of any of it. Just watching it, from the inside of Jacob's body (really didn't wanna know what my teammate looked like naked either, but here the hell we are!). Not just seeing, either, feeling -- physically, emotionally. I look at this guy in the bed, I know his name's Adrian, and I love him more than anything in the world. Because Jacob did.  
  
For a second I also think about Cara. Weird little echoes reminding me, I guess. Something about all this. How comfortable it is.  
  
Anyway, Jacob-me and Adrian have sex. So that's a whole new weird thing to unpack in my brain now. I never had sex with a man before, let alone been one, and it's great, and we go at it again later, and it's a little better since my normal-brain is on the back burner out of the way by now.  
  
Dunno if I'd like it normally. Not exactly my brand of gay.  
  
And we go through this nice day. Busy day. It's our wedding day. June 22nd. I remember Jacob using that as his secret password to test his identity, when we dealt with the shapeshifter.  
  
I remember asking him about that date. I remember him showing me an engagement ring he wears on a necklace. I remember thinking, "Oh, shit, his fiancee died." And I didn't ask more.  
  
I remember I'm Lark's prisoner in this vision. I remember Lark's a personification of fear itself.  
  
This is going to shit soon. I'm stuck on a crazy terror roller-coaster, feeling like this is the happiest day of Jacob-me's life, and not knowing when the other shoe's about to drop.  
  
I see his parents, Elliot and Whitney Baker. I saw 'em before on a poster. Traveling magicians. They're younger here. I recognize Whitney, realize I met her years before this, at a party. Danced, flirted, went home with different people.  
  
So yeah, I hit on his mom and kinda-in-spirit slept with his boyfriend. Just need to find out I seduced his sister, too, and I'll almost have the whole damn set.  
  
I meet his sister Jodie, and I'm super relieved I don't recognize her.  
  
Even knowing this is going to turn into a nightmare any second now, I can't help but really get into this whole scene. It's like I'm watching the fluffiest made-for-TV flick. All their friends and family are there. Mom's doting all over Jacob-me, crying about her baby boy finally getting married.  
  
Honestly? I'm really digging it. Nice to forget myself for a day. Get to marry my gay lover in New York. Rock a suit without looking like I'm dressed for my own funeral. Be alive and not dying. Have a Dad. Have a Mom.  
  
I'm kinda really fucking jealous.  
  
Not for long though.  
  
The building blows up. Everyone dies (now I know something's different, since his parents are definitely alive). Everything's burning. It's just Jacob and Adrian left alive, in their tuxedos at the altar, looking at the fire and watching something walk out of the smoke.  
  
A demon. It's hard to look at. It doesn't make sense to my brain. Staticky.  
  
It walks up and says it's here for a body, and one of theirs will do. It'll be nice enough to let them pick which one.  
  
I know Jacob's thoughts: He freezes up and tries to think of a way out of this, like a puzzle.  
  
Adrian says, "Take me."  
  
And then the demon's gone. Adrian's face changes. He's not afraid anymore. He doesn't look at Jacob with love anymore. It's just a demon on the inside now, looking over at Jacob like a total stranger -- like Jacob's an insignificant mortal who got spared because of laziness and spite. It looks at him how monsters look at people they picked for prey, but won't kill just yet.  
  
Then it's gone. Then I'm gone. I'm back in the chair, crash-landing back in my own body and brain, feeling like I got kicked in the soul watching his-mine family burn to death and his-mine lover get possessed.  
  
"Did that really happen, or was that just a nightmare?" I say. "Because that really fucking sucked."  
  
I look at Jacob, who looks as terrified as I felt as him ten seconds ago. I look at where he's looking.  
  
Adrian is standing there, surrounded by little tongues of fire. He looks confused.  
  
I look at Lark, who looks surprised.  
  
Lark looks at Jacob. "Did you just... summon the demon possessing your boyfriend?"  
  
\---  
  
"Oh. Hey. You're Adrian. I just had sex with you in a vision."  
  
Adrian looks at me, looking even more confused. "Who are you?"  
  
"Uh. Van. Hi. I didn't literally have sex with you. I was reliving Jacob's memory of your last day together."  
  
"Oh, that."  
  
"Yeah. It was weird, and this is awkward. So who are you? The real you."  
  
"I'm Adrian."  
  
I get annoyed. Maybe it's because I just experienced that nightmare for myself, but having whatever's inside this man claim to really be him just pisses me off.  
  
"No. You're wearing Adrian. Who are you? The you on the inside of him."  
  
"Like I said, I'm Adrian."  
  
Jacob winces at all this, for some reason.  
  
"Okay, whatever," I say. "You're Bob now. Bob the Demon."  
  
"I... really prefer Adrian."  
  
"Too bad."  
  
Lark's back to smiling, which is a bad sign. "Now that you're here, why don't you have a seat with us? There's always room for one more."  
  
Another chair appears. Bobdrian appears in it. He's flexing, straining, catching on fire a little bit, trying to get away. Or trying to shit himself to spite the chair.  
  
Lark looks around the group, then says to Jacob, "It's really too bad for you that you didn't just share. You could have chosen which parts to go into detail with, like they did. Instead, they saw the entire, unfiltered thing."  
  
Jacob's face is going through a helluva roller-coaster of emotions. It'd be shorter to list the ones he's not having.  
  
"You said you'd let them go."  
  
"No. You said you wanted me to let them go. I simply... didn't do that. And now we're all back here. But since at least two of you were good enough to share your feelings, and for one of you it's a moot point now anyway, I'll hold up the end of the bargain I offered in the first place. I'll let you all go together, and I'll leave. This was really a fantastic first session. I'll see you all again in the future."  
  
He raises his hand to snap his fingers again. I raise my gun and shoot him in the fucking face just before he snaps.  
  
Then I'm in midair. I fall thirty feet to slam onto the roof of the hospital. Marcus and Jacob are standing there. I got the special entrance for my parting shot, apparently.  
  
I'm still hurt from the whirlpool of death in Chloe's house, and getting my arm jerked around by Lark in the vision, and now I'm feeling like a crunchy granola bar a fat guy sat on.  
  
Marcus rushes over to help me, of course. Maybe I would let him normally, except I'm not feeling normal, I'm feeling like emotional shit after going through those two nightmares, and I'm not having the damn angel dote on me like I'm the kid.  
  
I shove him off. "I'm fine."  
  
"You're not fine! You're badly hurt. Just let me help you, I can heal you."  
  
"I don't need you to protect me!" I snap. I draw on my vampiric vitality, focusing on the dark mojo that patches me up from the inside out. Don't ask me how it works. It doesn't put me at a hundred percent, but I'm steadier on my feet now.  
  
"Fine then," he says and turns away.  
  
There's an explosion from below, inside the hospital.  
  
"Adrian," Jacob says.  
  
Crap. We're up way too many stories on the roof of a building that just had a demon-bomb go off in it. There's screaming. Rumbling. The hospital shifts, shakes.  
  
I run to the edge and find a gutter pipe to fireman-slide down. Marcus follows me, and Jacob follows him. The pipe pops loose and sends Jacob flying. I jump up and catch him like Superman, except if Superman hit Lois Lane hard enough to snap her ribs. Oops. Better than dead.  
  
But he'll die soon. He got jerked around by Lark too, and that midair collision got him bleeding internally all over again. I set him down. Marcus tries to fix him up. Smoke starts pouring out of the building. People start pouring out too, running away from the fire. Oh yeah, it's totally on fire now.  
  
"We have to get in there," I say.  
  
"We have to go check on Rune," Marcus says.  
  
I run inside.  
  
I have a good idea where the pediatric ward is. I could go to the closest rooms and help those patients instead. I’d probably save more that way. But screw it. I have a soft spot for sick kids, okay?  
  
By the time I get out the first bunch I can find, Jacob's car is gone, with Jacob and Marcus in it. Okay. I run back in. I don't know how many times I run back and forth. It's getting hotter. Harder to see. Smoke doesn't hurt, don't need to breathe, but I still need to see.  
  
There's a big rumble, a break, a beam falls on me, pins me to the floor. I'm hurt badly again. I can't heal fast enough. The place is coming down soon. I'm not gonna survive another trip. I squeeze out and save myself. I run outside empty-handed.  
  
Firetrucks everywhere. Emergency vehicles. EMTs and doctors swarming. People running. Injured people getting treated on the lawns. Triage tents going up at a safe distance.  
  
I try my phone again, remember it's still busted, can't call Jacob. His car is still gone. I'm dying, I can feel it. I'm weak and stumbling. I need a doctor. How ironic, after that vision.  
  
I stumble over to the big swarm of medical workers. I'm not bleeding blood, just leaking clear vampire-fluid, so nobody really notices how bad off I am. I don't even bruise, 'cause there's no blood in me to make one. I don't know how I'm going to explain it to anyone. I can't remember if I actually try to get anyone's attention or call for help. I just stumble away again and find a curb to curl up on, hoping if I just stay calm and sit still long enough, I can heal up some. I know I can't walk anywhere like this. I feel like a sieve.  
  
I sit there for a long time, feeling awful. Physically, emotionally. If Jacob's scrying was right, then Rune's dead. Choosing to let her live meant nothing; Lark was just dicking me around for fun.  
  
It's been a long time. Nobody's coming back for me.  
  
That's what I think, anyway. Then Marcus walks up, sighs, and says, "Do you want me to help you?"  
  
I groan and say yes and try to sound tough and reluctant about it, and not like I'm totally miserable, frightened, and relieved.  
  
He puts a hand on my shoulder and heals me. It feels like my regular healing, except warm and spicy. Which is weird. It also sucks my wounds out of me and puts them onto him, and he clonks over in his armor, unconscious. Great.  
  
At least now I can go up and get a doctor on my own. They take Marcus to a triage tent. Nobody stops me from staying with him. Still in the FBI getup.  
  
"Why'd you have to be better than me," I mutter at Marcus. Nobody hears it.  
  
\---  
  
I call Jacob. He picks us up. Marcus falls asleep in the back. Jacob's barely holding on, himself. Honestly, so am I.  
  
"Hey, so. What was with that bright idea?" I say.  
  
"I thought... they'd just fight each other. I thought he was strong enough to take on Lark. I didn't know he'd blow up a hospital. I didn't even know we were still inside it."  
  
I was angry about the whole, 'indirectly getting a bunch of people burned to death', but it deflates. It's not like he did it on purpose. "Okay."  
  
It's an awkward car ride. Can't go too fast on small town roads. I swear the hospital's on the whole other ass-end of the county from the motel we're staying at.  
  
"So that vision," I say. "Um. How much of that was real?"  
  
"It wasn't our wedding day. It was the rehearsal. And no one died when it happened. Other than that, pretty much all of it."  
  
"Sorry about. Uh. Before. When I asked. I just thought it would be, like... a birthday. Not... that."  
  
Ugh, awkward. But we're at this now. Might as well keep going. Maybe I don't ask enough questions from my friends.  
  
"Was that why you started hunting?"  
  
"How old do you think I am? I told you I started hunting fifteen years ago. So no. I started as a teen, then I met him, then that happened," Jacob says. "My parents got me into it. It's a family thing. The magic, too."  
  
"Can you save him? Do exorcisms exist, for real?"  
  
"It's possible."  
  
He's not telling me the whole story about it, but whatever. Demon lore's not really why I'm asking.  
  
"If you save him, will you -- Will he, uh, join the team?" I ask. "Or will you two go off by yourselves?"  
  
Maybe he thinks it'd be awkward because of the sex-memory thing. Maybe a little. Mostly I'm wondering if they'd just take Rune and go be a happy hunter couple-and-kid together. No need for third vampire wheels in that family.  
  
"That'd be up to him," Jacob says. "But we wouldn't have a big extravagant wedding like that. It's not our style."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"It's just too... normal. We don't live normal lives."  
  
"But -- So? Why not? Why not throw a big awesome party before going back to monster hunting?"  
  
"Why, though? Do you want to be normal?"  
  
I laugh. A little, tired, dry laugh. "Jacob, I never got to be normal in the first place. I had one relationship that lasted any amount of time, and she left because I'm -- this."  
  
Technically, mostly true. The umbrella problem for all the other problems, anyway. Not here to talk about Cara, though.  
  
"You were hunting as a teen. I was dying. That vision was my first trip to the ICU. Like, I missed prom because I was in the hospital for a month. The only person who paid attention to me to ask me out in high school was a boy who figured I could get us into an R-rated movie because I looked older. I barely got to do anything, growing up. I started with diabetes, and I just... got worse and... then I was dying. So I became a vampire instead. I cut loose, moved to New York, hit all the clubs, and blew through all my money, and by the time I ran out, I had no one left, so I just..."  
  
I don't know why I'm saying all this, really. I don't think about most things most of the time. It just falls out of my mouth, while we're on this long road, not looking at each other.  
  
"I wasn't -- I got into monster hunting because hey, I'm better at it than normal people now, so I might as well..."  
  
"But doesn't it feel good to save someone?" Jacob asks.  
  
"Well. Yeah. Sure. Of course."  
  
"Are you saying that if you could, you'd just go back to being as close to normal as possible? You wouldn't want to keep saving people?"  
  
"I -- I don't know. I don't... think about it? I mean, do you want to do this forever?"  
  
"'Forever' isn't as long for us mortals as it is for you."  
  
"Okay, true, but..."  
  
I don't have a 'but'. We don't say anything else for a while. This is still the most talking I've done with anyone for a long time.  
  
Marcus wakes up.  
  
I ask him, "Why'd you come back for me?"  
  
"Because you chose Rune."  
  
I don't know how to reply to that. "Yeah, well. I mean. Of course. Duh. I care about her. We all do. She's just a kid. She doesn't deserve to die. She deserves to, you know, like, do teenager things and be alive and do all that. Drink milkshakes. Skateboard. I dunno. Whatever."  
  
After a while I laugh a little at myself. "Every time I see her knocking back milkshakes, and shoving in all that junk food, I still -- I'm counting carbs in my head and worrying about her blood sugar, calculating insulin... Stupid, I know. She's not -- I dunno, I'm not going anywhere with this."  
  
After a second though, I realize I am after all. "Marcus, when you first showed up -- After we found out what --" I start. "I thought you were one of the shadow creations. Because here's this, this guy who shows up and goes, 'I'm here to protect Rune. I'm better at it than you, and I can kick your ass if you try to stop me, and Jacob secretly called for my help because you were so bad at your job'. I almost thought... maybe you weren't even a real person, just something the monster made because --"  
  
I sigh. "I thought you were going to replace me."  
  
"If I called or prayed for help, I wasn't even conscious of it," Jacob says. "And how can I replace someone who ran into a burning building to rescue people?"  
  
"I mean, that -- I just -- I thought, what if it happened at my hospital?"  
  
"Then someone would've probably run in to save you, too," Marcus says.  
  
I notice we've been parked outside the motel for a while. "Hey, so, like, I know you two are super hardasses about duty and being martyrs, but can we please take a vacation before the next hunt? We really fuckin' need one."  
  
They mutter some tired agreements. Good enough. Marcus goes inside.  
  
I notice Jacob's still pretty bloodied, and I'm pretty hungry, and I don't trust myself to keep sitting out here with him alone.  
  
"...Hey. I need to... go and, uh..."  
  
"Eat a hobo?" Jacob says.  
  
"Wh- No! I don't -- Damn, I'm not that kind of vampire. I don't go around murdering random -- I, okay. Okay. Look. I need to feed, but I try to hunt down people who are... The kind of shitty people that society is better off without. Serial killers at large, domestic abusers, sex offenders who got off the hook. You know?"  
  
"So you're like Dexter."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"He's a serial killer who hunts other serial killers. He even takes their blood, too. You're basically him. ... It's a TV show."  
  
"Oh. That's dark."  
  
"Our lives are dark."  
  
"I like light stuff. I don't even like horror movies."  
  
"You're literally a horror movie monster."  
  
"That's kinda why." I grab the car door handle. "I'm... surprised you're... taking this killing-people thing so well."  
  
"You're not the first vampire I've hunted with. That's how I knew to keep a bottle of my own blood in the car. And no, before you ask, I don't have any more of those. Go do your thing."  
  
I walk off to do that.  
  
I only have one lead. Small towns are crappy for this, because even if you're sure they have a lot of assholes, everyone just closes ranks and nobody talks about it. You'd have to really settle in and keep your ear to the ground for a long time, and a long time is what I don't have. So the hopefully-an-abusive-douchebag I heard about in a local paper is all I've got.  
  
I hunt him down. Drink him dry from the arm. Don't like getting cozy in a man's neck, dead or alive. Slash up the wrist to hide the bite and make it look like a suicide. Take some, but not all, of the cash out of his wallet. The usual M.O.  
  
I get back to the motel. Chloe and Maureen are gone. Everyone else is there and awake.  
  
"Oh. Rune. Good. You're okay."  
  
"Whatever."  
  
"Uh. Are you okay? Did something happen to you?"  
  
"I don't know," she says coldly, "you tell me."  
  
I'm taken aback. I've never heard her take that tone before.  
  
"Uhh. We all had visions and... you were in mine. I was trapped in a hospital. I was sick. You were in a bed, and there was an empty bed, and Lark said I had to either kill you or... get in the empty bed and... be sick forever, again, and..."  
  
"And then what? What did you choose?"  
  
"I -- I got in the empty bed."  
  
She doesn't say anything at first, but it's like everything I said just made her angrier. She finally says, "Okay," in a tone like it isn't.  
  
"Rune, what... did you see? We all saw something different..."  
  
She doesn't look at me the whole time. "Nothing. I fell asleep. There was some darkness and some weird shit. I can't remember. Then I woke up and everyone was gone. Including the two people I was supposed to watch. I had one job and I failed at it."  
  
She sits on the sofa, pulls out her game-thing, and plays something without acknowledging anyone else anymore. I'm a little confused, a little concerned, a little hurt, but it's fine. Talking about this bugs her, so I won't.  
  
When we finally decide to get out of Ashland, we debate about bringing Marcus. I say I'm fine if he comes along. He's useful, he can fight monsters, he healed me, and he says he's looking out for Rune. Jacob's more suspicious and says Marcus could be a threat.  
  
"What are you going to do if Marcus decides to come after you with that flaming sword?" he says.  
  
"Depends on the circumstances. I'd prefer not to die. But I'd prefer to not murder him," I say.  
  
"I would also prefer not to be murdered by you," Marcus says, "if my opinion matters."  
  
Rune still thinks he's weird and at least a little creepy. She doesn't bring up her hating-his-god thing this time. Jacob decides we can take on Marcus if he turns against us.  
  
We go to the car. Marcus drives so Jacob can pass out in the back seat. I wait for Rune to call shotgun like usual. She doesn't. I pull the front window visor down. Marcus puts on blues and jazz. Normally we play pop and musicals, but we're all too tired to argue, and I don't really care as long as it's not some autotuned rap bullshit.  
  
We head off, not on a hunt this time, but on our first real, and much-needed, vacation.


	4. Mall of America

Welcome to the Mall of America, Minnesota!  
  
Not having my own income sucks!  
  
Rune can't get out of the car fast enough. She disappears into the crowd instantly. The rest of us get a room. Rune never shows up. Jacob mostly disappears too. Marcus comes back to sleep. Doesn't want to go see any music or movies, whatever. He just feeds ducks in the local park.  
  
I only know that because I run into him there. He gets a snooty, zenner-than-thou air when I suggest doing literally anything actually fun. "I'm taking in the natural splendor of the state," he says, spreading his arms.  
  
Rune skateboards by suddenly, slapping the bread out of his hand. "Bread is bad for ducks!" she yells without stopping, and she's gone again.  
  
So if I'm going to be left alone for a week, I might as well pick up chicks.  
  
I run into Jacob long enough to borrow cash for the vacation. I buy a new phone. Maybe I'll get some numbers.  
  
I don't want to kill my dates, so I look through the local news for another douche to feed from instead. I find Jeffery Dunn, a serial rapist who got acquitted. Bingo. I do the usual. Corner him, bite his wrist, slash his wrist, take some of his money. I take a shower to clean off any blood, and make sure my hair smells nice with whatever fancy little shampoo the hotel has.  
  
I hit the closest bar. Flirt with some chicks. Strike out. Go back to the mall, find the movie theater, watch Mamma Mia 2. Check the hotel for the others (nope), go out wandering again.  
  
I spend the week like that, floating in and out of shops, bars, clubs, theaters. Can't seem to make any good small talk with any of the women I meet, keep sticking my foot in my mouth, don't know anything about what's popular in pop culture these days.  
  
I spend a lot of time in the shower, relieving stress.  
  
At the end of the week we all meet up again. Marcus looks zen and smells like he spent the whole week on the same park bench. Jacob looks almost relaxed (almost) and smells like booze and sex. Rune's got more paint on her hoodie, and her hair is purple now.  
  
"Well, I had a fun week," Jacob says.  
  
"Good for you," I mutter.  
  
"Ugh, we all smell like shit," Rune says.  
  
"Except you, Van," Marcus says. "You look like the only one here who's showered this week."  
  
I try not to look sour. "I know."


	5. Justice From the Grave

  
Rune's still taking the back seat next to Marcus. I dunno if she suddenly changed her mind about him being a crazy weirdo, or if she doesn't want to sit next to Jacob, or if she doesn't want to sit next to me. Oh well. I put on my shades in the front seat, and read through a bunch of gay romance novels I got at the mall.  
  
We head to Harbor Springs, Michigan. A guy named Toby Chase got his throat ripped out while working night shift in a gas station convenience store. Everyone looks at me.  
  
We get on our FBI duds and talk to the cops on the scene. I used Renard Van Ness the last couple times, so I switch to being Agent Raine Vaughn.  
  
We look at the security cam footage. Some woman in a hoodie comes in, takes all the Frosted Flakes. Toby freaks out at her face. She looks like a normal human, so we figure he recognizes her as someone who's not supposed to be in the store. She throws him at the wall like a rag-doll, then rips his throat right out with her bare hands. Doesn't eat it, doesn't drink his blood. Just takes the cereal and a half jug of milk, and leaves his corpse there.  
  
Rune finds the enort cereal boxes and jug out back at the dumpster. Jacob takes them to the car to try scrying on the monster. He sees a house in town, with some guy chatting to a teenage girl on the porch. No idea if it's related or just another glitch.  
  
We check out Toby first. His next of kin's his mom -- so, if the woman at the store was some dead chick he knew who came back to life, it's not her. She's a shabby old woman living in a crappy trailer park. I ask if he has any sisters or ex-girlfriends who died or went missing. Nope. Some sisters who got adopted out. He never met them. So they're not anybody he'd recognize.  
  
I move on to the usual. Ask if he had any enemies, started acting strangely lately, et cetera. She doesn't know, except Toby was involved in a court case last year. She doesn't know the details.  
  
No more leads, no other next of kin, so we hit up that mystery house. It's just me and Marcus going in this time. He's going with 'Luke Johnson' for a fake name. Luke and his lightsaber fire sword. He doesn't have the sword out for this, thankfully. We finally got him to put on a suit instead of a suit of armor, too.  
  
"Here we are, on Lear Street," he says.  
  
"Okay, but it's Lyre," I say.  
  
"It's very clearly spelled Lear. It's right there on the sign," he says, as we get out of the car.  
  
Some guy walking by on the other sidewalk yells, "It's LYRE!" and grumbles about out-of-towners. I hear ya. Outsiders don't know how to pronounce literally anything in Jersey, either.  
  
"But it's spelled Lear," Marcus says.  
  
"The GPS was saying Lyre," I say.  
  
"But it shouldn't! That's wrong! It's Lear, like King Lear! From Shakespeare!"  
  
"Meh. Shakespeare's boring." I've never read actually read any.  
  
He looks at me like I just kicked his puppy. "It is not boring, you uncultured -- with your pop music and your disco --"  
  
"Better than that boring tooty Dingus Blingus you always play."  
  
"It's Charles Mingus, and he is one of the greatest jazz musicians of our time, and --"  
  
I don't actually mind jazz either, but it's funny watching a holy warrior on a prophetic mission getting riled up over stupid shit like somebody making fun of his favorite music.  
  
I knock, 'cause we're at the door by now. I keep my phone muted on an open call with Rune so she and Jacob can hear.  
  
We go in and talk to the man from the vision, Damian Alford, a tired-looking guy with dark hair and a 5 o'clock shadow. I tell the guy straight-up that we have an anonymous source pointing us over here, that we think he knows something useful about the murder. He sends his teenage daughter, Erica, upstairs.  
  
He's heard the name Toby Chase, says he can't place where. I ask if they were involved in any trials in the past year, or any legal cases like custody hearings or adoption.  
  
"A few months ago, there was a man," Alford says. He checks to make sure Erica's still gone. "A man named Everett Noble tried to force himself on my daughter."  
  
"I see."  
  
"Toby testified against us."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"He was a friend of Everett's. They called him in as a character witness." Alford stops making eye contact, starts looking around, looking low-key angry on the outside. "So Everett got off. Ruled innocent, with just a minor settlement out of court for..." He breaks off.  
  
"I see. Thank you."  
  
I leave a card, tell him to call if anything new comes up.  
  
Everett Noble's place next, on Yes Street. Shabby one-floor place in the seedy outskirts of town. The kinda road you don't wanna walk alone on, let alone barefoot, with all the broken glass. I knock on the door. I knock again right before he opens, just to annoy him.  
  
Noble looks like the kind of sleaze who'd try to rape someone. Dirty wife-beater, open bottle in hand. We tell him about Toby. We ask about the case. He cites double jeopardy instantly. I tell him we're not here to arrest him, but find out who might be out to kill people involved. He says the Alfords are dirty liars out to ruin him, or something, but I have trouble paying attention because Rune's sneaking in the back door. Great.  
  
I try to stall him by asking more and more questions, and Rune goes and knocks over a bottle in his bedroom. He tries to slam the door in our face, I stop it, we follow him into the house. I try to pretend I'm there to protect him, since he might have a home intruder, and I'm being a good officer of the law, reaching back like I'm ready to draw on whoever's in there. If we find Rune, we'll just pretend to arrest her, no problem.  
  
Except actual problem, she hides somewhere in this pigsty and none of us can find her. We can't leave her in here, but Noble's trying to get us to go away now. I make up something about protocol and having to sweep the premises or whatever. Marcus and I split up to cover the place.  
  
I peek back in the bedroom. There's an already-broken window, and now there's fresh blood on it. I figure Rune crawled out, and I hope I'm right.  
  
We thank Noble for his time and tell him to call us if he learns anything either. I say again that we're not here to get him, we're protecting him, since whoever went after Toby might come here too.  
  
I don't tell anyone that Noble's already next on the menu.  
  
\---  
  
I go to the courthouse and flash my fake badge to access the Noble vs. Alford trial transcript. Rune infiltrates the high school to find Erica. Jacob goes to the library.  
  
Turns out the case wasn't just an attempted sexual assault. Erica's mom Lillie tried to stop Noble, and he pulled a knife and murdered her. He tells a story about how this mom and daughter randomly attacked him instead. He gets acquitted on grounds of self-defense. Doesn't make any damn sense. Self-defense? Against an unarmed lady and her kid?  
  
I take down a couple names that'll probably get hit next: The Honorable Judge Jeremy Wainright, and Max Whitmore, the defense attorney. Also, Lillie died exactly a year and a day before Toby got killed.  
  
So yeah, this is a revenant. Unjustly killed people sometimes come back on their death-iversary and get revenge on their killers. Marcus asks me for more info. What, like all undead know everything else about each other? That's what Jacob's library trip is for.  
  
But now we have a dilemma. Usually these monsters go after innocent people. Or at least people who aren't dicks enough to deserve getting murdered. These douchebags at least partly deserve it. You could argue the lawyer was just doing his job, everyone's entitled to defense, whatever, and maybe Toby was just a dumbass with too much trust in his asshole friend (probably not but he still wasn't there).  
  
But Noble? He's dead meat, revenant or not.  
  
Rune asks what happens if a revenant just runs its course. Does it stick around? Go crazier, attack more people? Or just it die once it finishes its mission? Marcus hates this whole line of thought. Thinks we gotta protect every civilian no matter what. Meh.  
  
I'm fine with trying to save the judge and lawyer. No proof they're dicks enough to die. Noble's not living long though, but the question is: What does the revenant do if someone else kills its target first?  
  
I go to Noble's street. I lurk around nearby where nobody can see me. I think about how easy it'd be to get in that broken window to his bedroom. The only thing holding me back is not knowing if it'll make the revenant problem worse. Maybe we can take it out when it comes after him. If I kill him now, we lose guaranteed bait.  
  
Jacob calls. Tells everyone what he learned: If you kill the revenant's physical form, it can just jump into a new host corpse. If you don't kill it, it regenerates. The only way to keep them from regenerating is to bind them with silver chains. The only way to keep them down is an iron stake through the heart. Otherwise you gotta burn 'em to ashes.  
  
Revenants almost always come back on their own. Sometimes there's necromancy involved. Not a lot is known about them. They show up suddenly, either get defeated in a hurry, or take their vengeance before anyone knows what hit them.  
  
I get another call. The cops tell me Judge Wainwright's been murdered. I ask how they know it's a murder. They tell me I'll know it when I see it.  
  
Marcus and I meet up at the judge's house. The corpse is super fresh and smells super-delicious. Oh yeah, and it's been torn in half. Not cut, torn. Ripped. Split right down the center, left and right.  
  
"So these killings are definitely symbolic," I say when we go back outside. "Toby talked against the family and his throat got torn out. The judge was -- I dunno, taking the wrong side, so now he's in two sides? So that lawyer, or Noble, is next."  
  
Rune says, "I think she's circling around Everett. Saving him for last. So... why don't we just let her?"  
  
I'm fine with that, except the competition means I lose out on a meal, but I don't tell them that. Rune and Marcus don't know I kill people, and I don't think they'd like that idea. Uncle Chuck always told me to tell as few people as possible. Once they know you're a murderer, they get scared, and scaring humans is the last thing you want.  
  
Marcus is also obsessed with saving humans, even if they're shitty humans, and he's the only human around who can seriously hurt me. He tore one of Lark's shadow conjurations apart with his bare hands once, and he pulled a flaming sword on me when I went feral on a corpse, so like, mutual protection of Rune aside, the dude can and will kill me if he "has" to.  
  
Next day comes. Marcus and Rune stake out the lawyer's place. Jacob goes to the hardware store to find supplies.  
  
I go see Mr. Alford again. I tell him Wainwright's dead. I ask him what he knows. He asks me why I'd ask that. I ask him if he's been into the occult lately. He says that's a weird thing to ask. I say I know and also I don't care.  
  
"Had any strange visitors lately, Mr. Alford?"  
  
"No, not really. Why?"  
  
"Really. Not even your wife?"  
  
"My wife's been dead for a year, Agent."  
  
"Yeah. I know. That doesn't stop some people." I almost add, "I should know."  
  
"I'd rather prefer it if you didn't bring up my wife."  
  
"Your wife brought herself up, and we both know it."  
  
He gives me a weird look. Not the weird look someone who doesn't believe in monsters gives you when you ask them this shit. The weird look someone who thinks you shouldn't believe in monsters gives you, when they realize just how much you know.  
  
"I thought you were with the FBI," he says.  
  
"Special branch."  
  
"A special branch that believes that long-dead people can come back up and pay their families a visit."  
  
I notice a box of Frosted Flakes on the counter past him. Crap. Lillie could be here right now, and I'm alone. I got silver bullets, but that's it.  
  
"I'm going to look around," I tell him. It's not a question.  
  
I check the house. Lillie's gone.  
  
"You shouldn't be involved in this, Mr. Alford," I say. "Because all your enemies getting murdered is just going to point a finger right at you. Tell your wife to stop, or it's going to end badly for all of you."  
  
I don't need to say that the local cops aren't gonna buy any "my undead wife did it" story.  
  
I also don't care that he's obviously pissed off at me now. I warned him. It's his wife's fault for being obvious with her kills. Chuck always told me not to be a drama queen, and Lillie's off the rails with her symbolic theatrics.  
  
I leave. I go stake out Noble's place again. He throws a party with a bunch of shady-looking creeps. Drugs, alcohol, loud music. Nobody notices me haunting a tree nearby. Night falls. Party's still going strong. They have shitty music, and the air stinks from all the boozing, smoking, and toking.  
  
Marcus calls, late at night.  
  
Lillie's in the lawyer's house.  
  
\---  
  
I book it to Max Whitmore's house. Shit's all fucked by the time I get there. Door busted open, dining table smashed, Marcus and Rune are getting what's left of their asses kicked by Lillie upstairs.  
  
I don't waste time on stairs. I scramble right up into the second-floor window. Lillie kicks me out and I barely catch myself and jump back in. The lawyer's trying to get the hell outta dodge.  
  
"Lillie! Wait, if you leave him, we'll let you get Noble!" I say.  
  
"But I can just kill them both," she says.  
  
"But your family --"  
  
Marcus interrupts. "This man was only doing his job! He's not the villain, he's innocent!"  
  
"Is he really?" Lillie sneers. "You don't know anything."  
  
She grabs Max as all three of us run in to try to stop her. I don't wanna shoot anyone else so I just jump in and sink my teeth into her shoulder and tear at her like a dog. She hits me with the back of her head hard enough to make me see stars.  
  
Rune lunges with her baseball bat, and Lillie gives a high-kick fast as lightning. Her shoe just bounces off Rune's enchanted hoodie and knocks it back, but if it was an inch over it would've caved the girl's face in like a peach.  
  
Marcus swings his fire sword and cuts Lillie's arm off. She screams and drops Max, and then she drops onto him and crushes his skull with her one arm. Marcus runs in again, but so does Rune, and Lillie just grabs Rune around the throat and holds her hostage.  
  
So Max is dead. We failed there. Lillie doesn't wanna kill Rune, or any of us, if we just back off. Marcus is bleeding out so I call an ambulance. He follows Lillie onto the roof. She promises to let Rune go as soon as Lillie can make a run for it without getting hack-and-slashed again.  
  
I can't stay and watch it play out. I'm busted up from getting knocked around, 'cause Lillie hits like a cement truck. I should just drink Max, but I'm not thinking straight, and all I can think of now is that I gotta take out Noble while I still have the chance. Besides, Marcus hates even seeing me bite already-dead corpses. I speed-walk outta there before the sirens can show up.  
  
I can't run or jog or I'll rip myself open past the point of healing, and I've already tapped into my vampire healing as much as I can for now. I need to feed. I'm starving and I'm pissed.  
  
I get to Noble's house. He's still throwing his shitty party. I burst right in and yell for Everett. Drunk sleazes point me to the one drunk sleaze I need, in the back yard doing a keg stand. I push him over and let him choke on beer, while I flash my badge around and yell at everyone to get out. Party's over, but I don't need to tell 'em that, people run for it as soon as they see the badge and hear "FBI".  
  
Noble gets up and yells at me. "What the fuck?!"  
  
"You're under arrest!" I yell back. It doesn't have to make any sense, okay? I just need a couple seconds for everyone else to clear out.  
  
He yells something else at me, but the second we're alone I lunge at his neck. Don't have the patience to finesse this. He's on the ground in moments. His blood tastes like turpentine, but beggers can't be choosers.  
  
Lillie cancels that plan by tackling me like a bear.  
  
"Are you kill-stealing from me?!" she screams in my face, then laughs. "Are you cucking me?"  
  
"Kill him! He deserves it! Can I at least drink him dry after you're done with him? I'm thirsty, dammit!"  
  
"Deal." She gets off me. "But stay down, or else."  
  
"Yeah, fine, whatever." I lay there and focus very hard on not dying again from getting run over by a revenant freight train. I heal up a little more.  
  
Lillie doesn't get the chance to make the kill either, because fucking Marcus drives Jacob's car right through the fence into the back yard. He grabs Noble and shoves him in the car with Rune. Yeah, that's exactly the kinda person I want in a car with Rune. What the hell.  
  
Noble's not the problem anymore though. Pretty sure he's already long gone. The problem's that the revenant is triple-pissed, and she'll rip the car apart like a wet paper bag, and probably Rune too, just to get to Noble.  
  
Marcus jumps in the driver's seat, slams on reverse, slams on the gas, and screeches down Yes Street.  
  
"No..." I groan.  
  
Lillie runs after them.  
  
"Nooo, dammit." I pick myself up and book it after them. I don't have a plan. Tackle Lillie off the car? Shoot Noble? Ugh. This was almost over. Marcus, why.  
  
At least Rune has some brains, and she does the best thing possible by kicking Noble out of the moving car. He skids down the street like a bag of tomatoes, and leaves exactly the same kind of mess. Lillie runs over to punch his face into the pavement. Pretty unnecessary but what's one more blood splatter on the salsa platter, huh?  
  
I walk up, keeping out of arm's length. "I wasn't finished."  
  
She spreads her hands. "Well, help yourself."  
  
"I needed to drink his blood, I'm not gonna lick him up off the tarmac!"  
  
"Then tell your friends they shouldn't have gotten in the way."  
  
The car's stopped ahead. Marcus and Rune are coming over now.  
  
"Yeah, well, yeah. So what now?" I say. "Do you dissolve into a pile of dirt? Disappear into thin air? Keep killing?"  
  
"No. I'm done. I guess I'll just... go back to my grave. I'm satisfied."  
  
"Okay." I shrug. "Cool."  
  
Marcus suckerpunches me in the side of my head with all his strength. His fist feels like fire. Fucker smites me. I'm laid out in the street, barely seeing straight, barely conscious. I heal myself just a little bit more. My head didn't even hurt this much getting shot in it.  
  
"FUCK YOU!" Marcus screams at me. "And fuck you too!" to Lillie.  
  
I stay down. Maybe I coulda blocked him, maybe snapped his arm. Maybe jump up and punch back harder. Maybe do a lot of things, but I don't, 'cause rule number one is to stay calm. Always stay calm. Never threaten humans. Play dead and let 'em treat you like a dog.  
  
"Hey!" Rune says. "What the fuck, Marcus?!"  
  
"No! No, fuck them both!" he says, then turns to us again. "You crawl back into your grave where you belong and you stay dead this time, you cold, heartless, undead fuck!"  
  
I almost ask which one of us he's addressing with that one.  
  
"I'm going to," Lillie says calmly.  
  
"Good! Get! Go!"  
  
She gets gone.  
  
Marcus stomps over to me and hoists me up by the collar, which isn't hard, since I'm a limp noodle and he's a raging bull right now. He screams in my face and pulls back to punch me again, and Rune gets between us, arms out to defend me. I stumble back and retrieve my glasses.  
  
"Leave Van alone! You're being an asshole!" she says.  
  
"Van attacked a civilian -- We completely fucked up, we're supposed to be protecting these people, not cutting deals with the monsters and calling fucking dibs!"  
  
"Not this one, Marcus! This guy deserved it and we all know it!" Rune says.  
  
"That's not our place to decide! He had his trial, and we are not here to play judge, jury, and executioner! We are here to protect humanity from monsters!"  
  
"He's the monster here!"  
  
I chime in by now. "Who do you think I've been eating all this time, Marcus? He's exactly the kind of scum of humanity I target. If there hadn't been a revenant here, if he wasn't involved at all, I would've hunted him down and killed him already."  
  
"Then why didn't you?" Marcus snaps.  
  
"Well, I don't know. Are you angry I bit him or not?"  
  
"Just -- Just get in the car. We're leaving."  
  
I don't argue. We get in and go get Jacob. The ride out of town is tense and awful. I’m feeling shitty, physically and emotionally, and I have to hold my tongue here, so I send a text to Mr. Alford: "Hey. Your wife almost killed me." I add an angry emoji since I know how to do those now.  
  
Alford replies: "Yeah, she does that."  
  
Rune's sitting next to me for the first time. We're in the back while the guys are up front. I don't think she wants to be near Marcus anymore. She's still distant in general, doesn't talk, just plays her video games. I can't tell if she's mad at me now too, or if now she's afraid of me, which is why I didn't want to air my murder laundry in front of her.  
  
We stop at some park somewhere. Marcus stomps off into the woods alone. As soon as Jacob's out of the car too, Rune hands me a piece of paper without looking at me.  
  
I unfold it. It's a hand-written address for somewhere in Billings, Montana.  
  
"What is this?" I ask.  
  
"If you're ever in the neighborhood," she says, still not looking, "and feeling hungry."  
  
"What-- but -- Who--"  
  
She doesn't respond.  
  
"Oh. ...Oh."  
  
I put the note away. She pulls out her game again. We sit there a while in probably one of the most awkward silences of my unlife.  
  
"Hey, uh," I say eventually. "Thanks. For earlier."  
  
"Whatever," she says, but it's not cold and hard like it was back in Ashland.  
  
A flock of birds goes flying out of the trees as Marcus's voice in the distance screams out a single, "FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!"


	6. Storms

On September 8, a man fell from the sky and shattered like glass on the highway outside Driggs, Idaho.  
  
We rush through Montana to get there. Rune's tense the whole time. For the first time, she doesn't wanna stop at any diners or attractions.  
  
It's chilly up here. Doesn't bother me, but I never miss a chance to look fashionably in-season. I throw on a turtleneck, overcoat, and light scarf. Jacob does something similar. Marcus puts on even more flannel.  
  
The scene's taped-off, but the cops have come and gone. Nobody to flash badges at today, so we just go up and start snooping, taking pictures. Looks like the guy was frozen solid, and dropped on the road.  
  
We ask Jacob if his magic could do something like that. He says sure, if you dropped someone from high enough.  
  
"Fallen angel," I say.  
  
"Maybe he fell from a plane," Marcus says.  
  
"Astronaut."  
  
"What's that thing where you freeze someone to send them forward in time?" Rune says. "Cryostasis?"  
  
I take off my glove and touch the frozen blood, take a taste off my finger. "Tastes like a normal human." I take a few more tastes. "Middle-aged. Healthy. Nothing special."  
  
I taste some more. Good stuff. Why waste it?  
  
Problem is we don't know who the victim is, because the cops couldn't find any I.D., so there's no obit. We head into town. Tiny little town at the base of some mountains. Even colder here. We sniff around to find out if anyone's gone missing. Turns out this older guy, Timothy Jerey, lived up the mountain. He comes into town regularly to pick up supplies at the Food-'n'-Stuff, but nobody's seen him for a few days.  
  
We go straight up to his house, and yeah. It's beyond trashed, it's half-missing. Something tore his cabin a new asshole.  
  
"Yeti," I say.  
  
We find huge claw tracks in the floor.  
  
"Gryphon," Marcus says.  
  
We follow the tracks outside. They lead to a clearing, then vanish. There's some wing-tracks too, like a pair of wings flapped down into the ground right there.  
  
"Or a roc," he says.  
  
"Maybe a roc. Something big enough to break down his house, pick him up, and carry him off. Maybe a dragon," I say.  
  
We keep looking around the area, and we find something weird: A circle stone embedded in the ground, kinda like a manhole except without the hole, and it's covered in these markings that don't make sense to me. We call Jacob over to look at it. He checks it out real close, says it's a magic circle to create an abjuration spell. Abjuration's the kinda magic that shields and protects things.  
  
Jacob says he's gonna try something. We move back. He does some of his magic hoo-doo at the circle, it starts glowing green. A green light aura spreads up and unfolds like an opening umbrella. There's a rumble, a roar, and now we have a fucking white dragon over us.  
  
Great!  
  
We scatter every which way. Jacob tries to hold off the dragon with ice -- ice wall, ice bolts, ice binding, whatever, but it's an ice dragon so it's not doing much good. It's huge enough to swallow at least half a guy whole if it wants.  
  
It takes a deep breath, and all the scales on its throat glow, and it blasts out ice breath on everyone at once. It bites Rune almost in half, freezes me in place, smacks everyone around like a cat playing with mice.  
  
We barely manage to get away and get in the car. Jacob’s too hurt to drive, Marcus takes the wheel. We race down the mountain. Dragon's flapping after us. We reach the highway. The shimmering green barrier's ahead. It's like a bubble covering the area around the mountain.  
  
We race through the barrier, and the dragon smacks into it behind us. We're safe. Everyone's hurt, but alive this time.  
  
We head to a diner to recuperate and plan. Nobody here's seen a dragon before. Not even Jacob, and he's done a lot of monster hunting. We don't know where to start.  
  
While we're trying to figure things out, someone comes up to our table. She's short, got black hair in a pixie cut, bright blue eyes, wearing a suit. She marches up and slams her hands on the table and says, "Hey, what the fuck was that?"  
  
"Hey," I say, waving. "It was a dragon."  
  
"Yeah, no shit. What the fuck do you chucklefucks think you're doing?"  
  
"Hunting a dragon," Jacob says.  
  
"No, I'm hunting a dragon," she says. "You four are fucking up my plans. Do you have any idea what you've done?"  
  
"Escaped a dragon."  
  
"Yeah, and you wouldn't have had to do that if you hadn't been fucking around with the ward on the mountain! Which one of you is responsible for that?"  
  
I point at Jacob. He looks annoyed at the woman. "I'm sorry, but who are you exactly?"  
  
"I'm Alexa," she says, "and don't even think about making the joke you're thinking about making, because that's the first thing every other idiot says, too."  
  
Both Marcus and Rune, whose mouths opened, close their mouths with a grumpy look at whatever joke she just stopped them from making.  
  
"I'm Van. Let's work together." I shove Marcus further into the booth so I can scoot in and make room for her. Alexa sighs but sits anyway.  
  
She explains that she's been chasing this dragon for a while. They're normally solitary, migratory. She didn't put the ward down, but it was convenient, because it was keeping the dragon stuck on the mountain. She would've cornered it up there. Except Jacob's magic energized the ward so the bubble got bigger.  
  
She's got her own magic too. She demonstrates by slapping her hand on the table again and sending out some electricity from it. Leaves little lightning-shaped burns on the wood.  
  
"Hot," Jacob says.  
  
"Yes," I say.  
  
Marcus is nodding too. Ugh. No. He doesn't deserve the hot magic chick. He can go find some boring conservative chick after church service and they can save themselves for marriage together.  
  
Besides, swooping in to cockblock and take the hot chicks for ourselves out from under dudes' noses is like, Lesbian Culture 101. I have a new mission now.  
  
Rune just looks bored and cranky. She gets up to use the restroom. Alexa takes her spot.  
  
The rest of us keep strategizing about the dragon. They're pretty much impossible to hurt at all if you don't have some kind of magic weapon. Jacob and Alexa squabble and snark about whose magic is better. He shows off his magic-guild tattoo, she doesn't recognize it.  
  
It feels like too long for Rune to be gone. Even if the food made her sick, this is too long. I get up and check the restroom. Door's locked, but no answer when I knock, and no sounds inside, including breathing. I go back, tell the others, we all go outside to check around out back.  
  
The window's open, and Rune's backpack and baseball bat are missing from the car. Great. Why'd she ditch? At least the dragon can't reach this far. Yet.  
  
We follow her tracks out of town. South, into the woods. They lead to the base of a tree and stop. Looks like she got down and crawled into the tree or something, but there's nothing there. We check around. Doors, burrows, snares, pits, whatever, nothing.  
  
Except the mushrooms. There's a faerie ring around the tree.  
  
Jacob says sometimes portals open up and take people into the faerie wilds. He tries to focus some magic on the circle, but no go. Says the only way is with a big, dangerous, long ritual.  
  
Alexa gets huffy, says we can worry about that later, she's got a dragon to kill. Marcus and Jacob wonder to me if we can just let her do that herself. I don't know, but that's not what I'm thinking about right now.  
  
I don't care what Jacob says, I get down and start digging. I dig at the tree, pull bark off, dig at the dirt, pulling up roots, I'll get our fucking kid out of this place with my bare hands if I have to. I dig and break until the tree falls over. There's nothing. No portal.  
  
Then Rune appears again. She doesn't look good. Shocked, freaked out but frozen up about it, she's got cuts, I smell blood on her. She doesn't respond to anybody at first. Finally just says she was in, "Faerieland," and she's, "Fine," and that's all I get out of her.  
  
I've never met a faerie. I believe in them, I figure, why not? Lots of shit exists. And I believe her when she says that's where she's been. But a weird little voice in my head says, "Don't believe it." There's no reason for it. I believe her, but I get a weird feeling the faeries themselves don't want me to.  
  
Doesn't matter. Don't need to worry about that right now. Rune's back and she's safe. That's what matters. And we still have a dragon to kill.  
  
We head back to the car. Jacob enchants his family heirloom sword. He lent it to me in Ashland, I never ended up using it, he never asked for it back, it's just been kinda forgotten in the trunk ever since. Anyway, he magicks it up, magicks up Rune's baseball bat too, looks like it's got ice spikes coming out of it now. He reassures us it's not specifically ice magic, since that won't hurt the dragon. It's just ice-looking magic. Whatever, works for me.  
  
I ask if Alexa has anything to spare. She said earlier she would. She gets pissy about it and snarks at Jacob some more. I say, "Look, just loan us some stuff and then you can bask in your magical superiority and lord it over his head forever." She agrees.  
  
Marcus doesn't need any. He's still got his flaming sword.  
  
We come up with a plan. We'll go back to the magic circle. Someone will be the bait, and everyone else will jump out and ambush the dragon when it shows up. Rune volunteers (she always does, I swear) and we shut that down. Marcus volunteers, really tempting to let him be dragon bait, but he's our best healer. Jacob's got protective magic, but it's all ice-based, and without that he's just a twig.  
  
"Okay. I'll do it. I'll be the bait," I say. "I'm the most resilient, I can heal myself, I can run away fastest if I have to."  
  
Alexa gives me a flare gun to get the dragon's attention. This whole time, we've been parked on the highway just outside that green bubble. Alexa's been stirring up a huge storm cloud overhead like it's nothing.  
  
Jacob looks impressed and worried. Once we head up the mountain without her, he says he doesn't trust her. She's way too powerful, her magic isn't normal human magic. He thinks she's a lich or something. I don't care, as long as she's on our side.  
  
We get to the spot. Everyone hides in the trees. I go over to the magic circle and shoot the flaregun. I hear a rumble. The dragon appears, swooping in from somewhere. I yell, "Hey, ya stupid lizard!" just to make sure I got its attention.  
  
It swoops in and everyone jumps out. I'm stabbing with my sword, Marcus is stabbing with his sword in-between asking Jesus for help, Rune's swinging her bat, Jacob's got an electric-magic gun thing and he's shooting away. The dragon's clawing and biting, sending us flying with its tail.  
  
Its scales start glowing. It draws a deep breath. Rune's beat up bad already and Marcus is wrapped around a tree after the last tail swipe. I rush over, jump in front of her, take the full blast of ice magic right as she chucks her bat over my shoulder. It nails the dragon right in the eye, goes in deep, and that's the killing blow.  
  
I feel really, really cool now. We slew a dragon. Fuck yeah!  
  
I'm also feeling really hurt. You know what? I'm going to get the bragging rights as maybe the first vampire to feed on a dragon. I run over and bite its neck. The stuff's fantastic. Never had blood this good before. It's more than filling, it's healing me up faster than I heal myself normally. It's got a minty fresh zing, too.  
  
The blood's also kind of smoky-ooze-black and not normal and red, but whatever, maybe that's normal for dragons? Tastes great, so who cares.  
  
Alexa comes over and puts her forehead on its forehead. She says some kind of spell under breath. The body poofs away into a snow cloud without a trace.  
  
Okay, so that's weird, but cool. I'm thinking she's a Valkyrie -- lightning powers, ancient magic, does a last-rites kind of spell for her foes? Or a demigod. That'd be cool too.  
  
She asks if we wanna ask her anything now. Jacob asks her what and how old she really is. She says she's ancient and powerful and that's all we need to know.  
  
Marcus starts to ask her something. Nope. My chance now.  
  
"Hey Alexa," I say, "wanna go someplace?"  
  
"Yeah, sure. Where?" she says.  
  
"A- uh- a room?"  
  
"Yeah, okay. I need a minute up here first. I'll meet you down at the hotel," she says.  
  
"And this is a, uh, a room with just us in it, and not the others."  
  
"I kind of figured that out for myself, based on your complete lack of subtlety."  
  
I grin like an idiot, feeling somewhere between embarrassed and giddy-excited. "Okay. Cool beans. See ya there."  
  
Alexa walks off, up the mountain. I walk back to the car. I go, "Nyeh!" at Marcus as I go by. He never meets us at the car, so we drive back without him.  
  
I wait around outside the motel, feeling nervous, wondering if maybe she just said that to get me to leave sooner. But hey, she shows up after all.  
  
"There you are," she says.  
  
"Hey." I have no idea what else I should say.  
  
"Is that all? 'Hey'? Got nothing else?"  
  
"Uh. I -- Sorry, I'm not real good at talking to people, especially, uh, talking to pretty girls."  
  
"Thanks. So, you wanna get a room?"  
  
"Yes please."  
  
We do, and it sure more than makes up for the dry spell I've had the past few months. Turns out whatever kind of magic-ancient thing she is, she's kind of immortal like me. She doesn't need to sleep. We make the most of that for, like, six hours. Taking breaks here and there because I'm not insane and like having at least some feeling left in my body.  
  
Turns out she's into being bitten too. I mean, I got full on dragon blood first so I don't need a snack for a while, but then she brings it up and says have at it. Doesn't seem to really hurt her, so cool. Her blood tastes like licking a battery.  
  
Also turns out she's a hard top. No surprises there. I don't really care who's in charge so I'm just fine letting her take control. We both have, uh, things in our supply bags between us (and 'cause we're hunters, there's all sortsa bindings and shit too), and she's got her electricity powers and I've got my damage resistance, and she's way into trying new stuff to spice up the bang-a-thon, and y'know what, I'm more than fuckin' fine with gettin' fucked whichever way she wants.  
  
God, this is the best day ever. Slay a dragon, lay a dragon-slayer.  
  
After getting plowed six ways from Sunday, I'm eventually content to pass out. Normally I don't sleep, since I don't need to, and don't usually like to, but I like it if I'm in some good afterglow cuddling. Can't remember if she actually spoons or not, I'm out like a light.  
  
I wake up from my phone ringing. Alexa's gone, left while I was asleep. Oh well.  
  
I answer the phone. It's Ezekiel Walker from Nevada.  
  
"Oh, good, you still have this number," he says. "There's something important I have to talk to you about."


	7. Web of Lies

  
So that guy we saved from the nuckelavee is a hunter now. Must be a decent one if he’s still alive. He’s in New York, and he wants to meet up and talk about something he can’t say over the phone. I shower, get dressed, go find the others. I’m well-fed, well-fucked, and walkin’ funny. Nobody comments.  
  
Jacob doesn’t wanna go to New York. No other leads for hunts or anything, though, and nothing else to do (except hunt a certain sleazeball in Montana, but he doesn’t know about that, and it’s not my business to tell him). I finally talk him into taking us.  
  
Marcus has a guitar now. Who knows where he got one in the middle of the night. He starts twanging away on it in the car, while the rest of us are trying to sing along to showtunes.  
  
“Hey, you know it’s like, rude to start playing some other song on an instrument, while someone else is already playing music, right?” I say.  
  
“I’m sorry, my mother never told me of this obscure social convention.” He doesn’t stop playing. What an ass. Jacob turns the volume up a bit.  
  
“Now you know,” I say. “You’re welcome. You can stop now.”  
  
Marcus doesn’t stop. “You’re not my mother.”  
  
“I’m old enough to be!”  
  
Jacob’s still raising the volume, so we’re raising our voices more and more. Rune puts on her headphones while Marcus and I have a shouting match over his stupid guitar until he stops. I swear to god, if he pulls this shit again, I’m ripping the strings off with my bare hands.  
  
At one of the rest stops, I take the chance to try talking to Rune alone. I ask her if she’s been okay, she asks why, I say she’s seemed kinda distant and upset and less-okay the longer we’ve been hunting. She says she’s fine, brushes me off, I say okay and don’t ask more.  
  
Jacob comes up to me at another rest stop. “Hey, so, Van, I’ve been wanting to ask you some things about vampires,” he says. “Based on the ones I’ve worked with before, it seems like you tend to be pretty evasive about information.”  
  
“Well, yeah. There’s not like, any official code or something about it, just…” I try to remember how Uncle Chuck told me to handle these things. “A lot of vampires don’t like things being known about us, and I don’t want to put you or me in danger by saying too much. So, uh, ask away, and I’ll just tell you when it’s something I shouldn’t tell you.”  
  
“Okay. So, first question, and I think I already know the answer, but what breed of vampire are you?” Jacob asks.  
  
That’s a tricky one. Vampire breeds, or bloodlines like they’re usually called by the in-crowd, are based on the first vampire of a certain type. There’s two ways to become a vampire: You get turned by one, or you commit some horrible violence so evil and concentrated you just turn into a blood-drinking monster on the spot.  
  
Thing is, info about the breeds is pretty much known by people who know things about monsters. That’s not a secret. Like duh, I’m super hard to hurt, I heal super fast, sunlight and stakes and shit don’t harm me. Hunters know that, hunters know the other types have different powers and weaknesses.  
  
The problem’s with the names. Hunters call our types names they made up. Only vampires know the real, secret names, 'cause those are the names of the founding father vampires. And the problem with letting mortals know that, is then mortals know you can turn yourself into a nightmarish monster by being as really fucking evil as fast as you can.  
  
So nobody wants humans having more reasons to go nuts and murder each other. It’s not a guarantee anyway, or you’d have shitloads more vampires springing up all the time.  
  
I’m 'descended’ (used loosely, obviously) from the first-of-the-first vampires. Cain. Like, THE Cain. Murdered his brother in the Bible. I guess since it was the first murder, it was special enough to turn him. We’re a slow burn kinda bloodline. Not as good at murdering, and our powers take a long time to really come in, but we’re good at lasting a long time until that happens.  
  
Only a couple seconds have passed. “Um. Well. I’m the ancient breed. You call them 'The Old Ones’.”  
  
God, so cheesy. I bet a vampire came up with that one just to sound ominous.  
  
“What can you tell me about the other types?”  
  
“Umm. Not… a lot. Since the thing is, uh. That’s one of those things. I’ll just say, we have our own names for them, but telling you those names would be implying a lot more about vampires in general than I’m supposed to tell you. What kind of vampire did you hunt with before?”  
  
“The insanely violent type.”  
  
“Mm. Okay. Bloodrager.” I make a face when I say it. We call 'em Ripper vampires. They’re psychos who make a big, messy scene wherever they hunt. They’re the reason monster hunters get on the asses of every other vampire in existence.  
  
“If I need to, how do I kill your breed of vampire?” Jacob asks.  
  
“Ah, well, uh, we don’t have a specific weakness. It’s pretty much, you just keep beating us up until we can’t heal past it anymore. I don’t know exactly how much that takes. The worst you’ve seen me hurt is the worst I’ve ever been hurt, so… you know as much as I do there.”  
  
"Is there a cure for vampirism?"  
  
"Not that I know of. I've heard of people trying different things, but it never works. And I... kinda never wanted to be cured, since if I turned human again I would just die," I say. "The closest I ever heard of a vampire being turned human is when Lark made me human again in that vision-thing. And I don't know if he can even do that permanently, or at range, or what."  
  
He doesn’t ask anything else.  
  
It takes a week to reach New York City. Looks like last time, except with newer, shinier ads. Feels nostalgic. I think I’m the only one here who still likes this place, but I’ve had thirty years to get over my shit here.  
  
We meet Zeke at a cafe. He looks like before except less drunk and exhausted. He introduces us to his hunting partner, Michael, a young skinny dude with black hair and dark skin. They get right down to business and put down this leatherbound journal. It doesn’t look big on the outside, but when they open it up and flip through it, it’s got way more pages than it should.  
  
Turns out it’s his great-whatever-grandfather’s journal. Alexander Walker was in-the-know with monsters, surprise, surprise. The nuck actually was an old family pet. Walker Sr. made a deal to keep the lake salty while it kept the town safe. It went on its attempted murder spree once the lake started de-salinifying. So I was totally right.  
  
After Walker Sr., the journal got passed to someone named Elise, and then someone named Silas Vallens. Rune gets a weird reaction to that, and pulls out a different leatherbound journal from her backpack to compare the pages together. I ask her what’s up, she says nothing. Uh-huh.  
  
Silas’s writings come right up to a few years ago, and go back to the 1800s. Looks like he might’ve hunted with these other two. Immortal? Time travel? Who knows.  
  
Zeke points out this weird symbol that’s in a lot of Silas’s entries. They’re mostly all monster data. We don’t recognize the symbol, any of us – it’s not the warding circle from the mountain, Jacob’s magic guild tattoo, or The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.  
  
The symbol is next to an entry for the nuckelavee. And a dragon. And Cain.  
  
Shit. I look for other vampires. Lots of them here. I look for Uncle Chuck. No mention. No idea what this means though.  
  
The last entry doesn’t have any info. It’s just the symbol next to the name, “Lily”. Rune looks tense. She takes photos of all the book pages. I ask her to forward the files to the rest of us. She barely responds, gets up, leaves. Jacob goes after her.  
  
I catch Zeke up on the monsters we’ve fought so far. I ask him who won the election in Walker’s Lake. Diane Stiles won a second term. So that’s one cliffhanger resolved. I ask what he’s fought so far.  
  
“Well, there was a bunch of zombies, a werewolf, a siren,” Zeke says, “and the less said about that one, the better.”  
  
“You banged the siren, didn’t you.”  
  
Zeke glares. Michael just leans back and smiles.  
  
\---  
  
“Your friends left suddenly,” Zeke says. “Is there some kind of story there, with Silas and these other names?”  
  
“I’m sure there is,” I say, a little bitterly, “but I wouldn’t know what, because she never talks to me.”  
  
Zeke and Mike drop the subject, move on to a new one. There’s a case here in New York. They show us the case file. A woman named Amanda Salvadore, middle-aged woman married to a guy named David, got drained of blood through two punctures in the neck. Sounds like basic vampire business.  
  
“We can split up to cover more ground. Do you want to talk to the husband, or check out the crime scene?” Zeke asks.  
  
“Uh.” I look at Marcus, who doesn’t say anything. “Lemme ask the others.”  
  
I text Jacob and Rune the case info, ask ‘em what they want, no replies from either.  
  
“Okay, uh,” I say. I’m not used to making executive decisions. “Crime scene. We can text each other whatever we learn.”  
  
As the two guys get up to go, I notice yet another weird symbol, this time tattooed on Mike’s collar. “Hey, what is that?” I ask.  
  
He zips up his hoodie. “Nothing.” And he leaves.  
  
Jacob finally texts back right after the guys are gone. Asks me to ask them about the book and some stuff in it. I tell him it’s too late now. Technically it’s not, but whatever.  
  
Marcus and I go to the crime scene, an empty alleyway, duck under the yellow tape to snoop around. There’s a body outline and that’s it. No signs of a struggle, but signs of intimacy, two people were entangled, and only one of them left. Nothing else. Not even blood.  
  
Except Rippers, most vampires make clean kills, since it’s a dumb way to waste a meal getting blood everywhere. But there’s usually something, a couple drops. I have a theory, but I wanna look around more.  
  
I find some mud tracked up the wall of an apartment building flanking the alley. I go around, find the fire exit, go to the roof and find muddy foot prints. They head to the edge of the roof, disappear part way, replaced by faint bare prints. The killer musta realized they were tracking mud, took their shoes off, jumped to another roof. I make note of what direction they went.  
  
“Okay, so, this is probably a Black Hole vampire,” I say to Marcus.  
  
They’re called Dracula vampires to us. Yeah, HE’s real.  
  
“A what vampire?”  
  
“They don’t have to use their teeth to drink blood. They just pull nearby blood into themselves like a black hole’s event horizon. Or a magnet. Have you ever seen Terminator? It’s like when the robot’s shattered, but then he melts, and pulls back together. Except it’s blood and it goes into their skin directly.”  
  
“How horrifying.”  
  
I shrug. “Convenient, though. Anyway, this kind of vampire’s got your basic popular media weakness. Wooden stake to the heart.”  
  
“Or my flaming sword.”  
  
“Yes. Or your fists.”  
  
I text all that to the others too. Nothing else from Jacob. I tell him we’re leaving the crime scene, in case he shows up anyway.  
  
Marcus and I hit the nearest hardware store and load up on wooden stakes and a few mallets.  
  
“I feel very Daddish right now,” I joke. “I think I wanna build a deck. Hold a barbecue. Wear an apron with a pun on it.”  
  
“'Raise the steaks’,” Marcus says, earning back a fraction of my respect.  
  
The worker nearby says, “I can show you where the lumber is, if you’re looking to build a patio?”  
  
I suck in air through my teeth. “Tempting. Maybe next time.”  
  
We meet up with Zeke and Mike. I hand off some stakes and mallets. They tell me about Mr. Salvadore. He didn’t seem too broken up about his wife’s death. They had a troubled marriage. He thought she was cheating on him. I point out it looks like he was right.  
  
Now we need a plan to corner this vamp. I check the folder again. Amanda’s phone was missing from the body. Her number’s in the file. I get a plan. I do some quick Googling first to prepare.  
  
“Okay. Stay quiet. I’m going to call her phone. Pretend to be an old friend.”  
  
I ring her phone. It takes four rings before someone answers. Can’t tell gender from the voice. I put my own voice up a notch to sound more feminine.  
  
“Hey, Amanda!” I say.  
  
“Uhh… Yes. That’s me. Who’s this?” they say.  
  
“It’s me, Jean! Are we still on for tonight?”  
  
“…Yes. What’s tonight?”  
  
“Don’t you remember? We’re going out for a girl’s night at Club Hydrogen!”  
  
“Oh right. Yeah. That. Yeah, I’ll meet you there.”  
  
“Okay! See ya there!”  
  
Once I hang up, Marcus looks incredulous. “You’re going to a night club?”  
  
“Mm. I used to know every club in the city,” I say. “This one’s new. Hip. I’ll tell you the plan later. I gotta go shopping.”  
  
I hit up some stores for a last-minute club wardrobe, go to the hotel to change and gussy up. Got a black spaghetti-strap mini-dress, strappy stilettos, a little clutch purse, some dollar store make-up. It takes a hell of a lot of concealer to hide my eye-bags, but I pull it off. Eye shadow, mascara, lipstick, the works. I un-braid my hair, leave it loose.  
  
I stare at my reflection a while. Marvel at the transformation. I remind myself that my 'underfed’ look is all in vogue with the models these days, and nobody’s gonna know why I’m like this. The amount of effort it takes to not look sickly is a big part of why I stopped bothering, even when I was human. But damn, I can totally pull a Cinderella when I feel like it. I shoot myself finger-guns and a wink.  
  
I go outside, meet up with Marcus, and Jacob and Rune, finally. Rune looks like she’s been crying. Jacob just shakes his head at me when I look at her. Okay.  
  
Marcus gives me a sneer like I just ate gum off the sidewalk. “Ugh, what did you do to yourself? Your face, your everything, you look so weird.”  
  
Oh, sure, just insulting me every chance you get now? Asshole. I think it but I don’t say it, 'cause I’m already sick of responding to his bullshit, and his opinion doesn’t matter anyway.  
  
Then Jacob says, “You look like a middle-aged woman trying to reclaim her youth.”  
  
Okay, well. He’s gay and not into chicks, but his opinion matters, and that hurts. It’s not like I told him nobody paid attention to me in high school 'cause I looked like this back then, too. Not like I’m stuck looking exactly like this forever 'cause I had to die ugly. Whatever. I can stop pretending once we’re done here. I don’t need self-esteem to kick a monster’s ass.  
  
I don’t say any of that, 'cause you’re not supposed to say stuff like that. Insert unlife advice from Uncle Chuck about not showing weakness, here.  
  
“Anyway, I’ll dance with the vampire for a couple hours,” I say. “Since if they show up and I suddenly go, 'Actually, forget the club, let’s walk down some abandoned alleyways together!’ that’ll just look suspicious.”  
  
“Why didn’t you just have Marcus do this?” Jacob asks.  
  
“Because he obviously can’t pull off being cool enough to know how to act in a club. Anyway, you three will set up an ambush at this alleyway nearby.” I show them the spot on a map on my phone. “I’ll lead the person down that way. I don’t know for sure they’re really a monster, or just some random person who took a cell phone off a corpse, so wait for my signal instead of just jumping out to attack.”  
  
“What’s the signal?”  
  
“I’ll stop and say I have a rock in my shoe.”  
  
“Where’s your stake? A garter?”  
  
“Does this dress look like I could hide a stake anywhere?” I say. “It’s in my purse, duh.”  
  
They go to the alley to wait. I go to the club. I wait around outside. People come and go constantly, music’s thumping from inside. Reminds me of the good old days, when I lived here. Except most of the clubs I went to back then were for queers.  
  
Someone finally approaches me. Young, skinny thing, with shoulder-length, kinda curly brown hair, and blue eyes. Hard to tell gender, can’t tell race either, they look mixed, maybe. Wearing a crop-top over a fishnet tank, and skinny jeans. Damn, and I thought I looked slutty.  
  
“Hey, Amanda, right?” they ask.  
  
“Uh. No. I’m Jean. Who are you?” I say.  
  
“I - I mean, I’m Amanda.”  
  
“You don’t look anything like Amanda. She’s a red-head.”  
  
“Right, I mean, my name is also Amanda, and I’m also here to meet Amanda.”  
  
“Okay,” I say, not pointing out how stupid they sound, “I guess she’s just not able to make it tonight. But I’m already out here and ready to dance, so why don’t we go in together?”  
  
“Yeah!”  
  
We go in, get carded by the bouncer. I sneak a glance at their I.D. It says Jax O'Hara.  
  
We hit the dance floor, bumping and grinding to all the hip new tunes kids like these days. It’s not bad. Good beats, totally danceable, that’s what really matters.  
  
Jax leads me back and forth from the floor to the bar. They’re slamming back shots and cocktails like it’s nothing. I buy one drink and take tiny sips at long intervals. I hate alcohol, it tasted nasty before, tastes worse now, and I don’t like the taste of anything that isn’t blood anymore either. Hate being drunk, too, so I’m stretching this out so I won’t even get tipsy.  
  
Jax is actually pretty fun company, all in all. Shame we gotta kill 'em. Eventually I say, “Hey, I’m all danced out. Wanna go back to my place?”  
  
“Oh yeah, let’s!”  
  
We head out. I lead the way toward the alley between us and the hotel. Problem is that Jax doesn’t seem undead. They’re sweaty from dancing, they have a pulse, they have body heat. What the hell?  
  
Once we get to the alley, I stop and grab Jax to start making out. I feel up that exposed part of their back to check there’s really a heartbeat, and stick my tongue in their mouth to feel around for fangs. If Jax notices I’m basically frisking them for monster bits, they don’t mind.  
  
Then I do feel fangs, but not vampire fangs. Our fangs are just our regular canines, but we can make 'em grow longer. These are like snake fangs, an extra set, folded back against the roof of Jax’s mouth. Suddenly everything’s all hazy.  
  
Okay, confirmation for being a monster. I think about my shoe. I gotta stop and get a rock outta my shoe. But I don’t really care anymore. I’m high as hell. Everything’s just groovy. I don’t need to signal anyone. Nothing’s wrong. I feel fine.  
  
Jax keeps making out with me for a while before breaking it off. I keep leading the way, feeling weirdly blissful. I’m totally compliant, and nothing seems wrong about any of that.  
  
Then Marcus tumbles out from behind us, in his armor. Clang.  
  
“Do you know him?” Jax asks.  
  
Normally I’d say no, but I can’t lie to Jax anymore.  
  
“Yeah,” I say, “he beat me up once.”  
  
“Then let’s hurry up and get to your place.” Jax pulls me along faster.  
  
The world’s all fuzzy around the edges. Marcus pulls out his sword, he does some flashy magic at Jax, Jax goes running, Jacob jumps out and throws an ice wall in front of Jax. There’s blows back and forth all around, Marcus gets laid out and blissed out on the sidewalk.  
  
Rune grabs me and pulls me away from the scene. I just go along, happy to go wherever anybody pulls me, no cares in the world. She leads me to the car, and a shot of webbing snatches her up and yanks her toward a roof top, before Jacob cuts the cord with an ice bolt.  
  
Okay. So not a vampire. A spider-monster. Apparently.  
  
Jax runs away for good this time, so everyone gets in the car and goes back to the hotel. They get me in a hotel room onto a bed. I pass out or fall asleep at some point.  
  
I wake up, sobered up, alone, and I freak out. Holy shit, I almost got – what? Date-rape-murdered? God, I hate being drugged. Going along with Jax like that makes my skin crawl. What if the others had let us walk off because I didn’t give the signal?  
  
Monster hunting makes a monster like me feel humble in all the wrong ways. Doesn’t matter how strong, fast, and resilient you are. Sooner or later, there’s something you can’t beat up, run away from, or resist.  
  
Don’t wanna think about it.  
  
I check my phone for the time. Middle of the night. I text the group, “Where is everyone?”  
  
Only Rune replies, “McDonald’s.”  
  
I hurry up and change into my slacks, turtleneck, and blazer. I don’t bother washing off all the make-up. I pull my hair back but don’t take the time to braid it. I just want out of here. I don’t feel safe alone right now.  
  
Jacob’s car is gone outside the hotel, no surprises there. I walk to the closest McD’s. Rune’s there alone at the back, eating some food as enthusiastically as if it’s cardboard.  
  
I sit down across from her. “Where are the others?”  
  
“Jacob had a thing he had to do. Some business to take care of. He didn’t want me along. He’ll come back for me later,” Rune says.  
  
“Oh. Okay. Is the milkshake machine broke here too?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Do you want a milkshake?”  
  
“Nah.”  
  
That’s weird. All of this is weird. I dunno what to say or do now.  
  
She does, though. “What do you know about Silas Vallens?” she asks.  
  
“Um. He’s a hunter, and he wrote in that journal. And that’s all I know. Why?” I say.  
  
“Yeah. He’s a big-time hunter, he’s really famous with all the other hunters, Jacob’s heard of him, everyone’s heard of him, and he’s supposed to be dead, except his last entry is from 2015.”  
  
“Well. I mean. I’m not big in the hunter community, if there even is one. I’ve never heard of him before. What do you mean supposed to be dead? How?”  
  
“I dunno. They didn’t really say.”  
  
“'They’ who? How do you know him?”  
  
“Silas is my dad,” Rune says. “And he died. Or I thought he died six years ago. Except he apparently didn’t.”  
  
“Oh,” I say. “That’s – um. Damn. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to– I wouldn’t even know how I’d feel if I found out something like that. If my parents didn’t really die, and were just…”  
  
“Yeah. I don’t either.”  
  
“I – The only thing I can say is, I don’t think he…” I fumble around for the right words. “I at least hope that he left because he had no choice. And had to keep you safe somehow by keeping this a secret. I don’t think he would leave his ten-year-old daughter out of like, spite. I hope.”  
  
Rune sighs. “How would I know? I don’t know anything about him anymore. Is he even human? Those entries go back for centuries.”  
  
“Well,” I say, “maybe. Maybe he’s immortal. Maybe he’s a vampire. Maybe time travel?”  
  
“Have you heard of someone called 'The Broker’?”  
  
“No, why?”  
  
“When I was trapped in Fairyland,” Rune says, “I met a fey there who called himself that. And the only way I could get out was by signing a contract to him. I owe him a favor now. I don’t know what it will be. But before he sent me back, he said I reminded him of my father.”  
  
I take in a deep breath just to let it out again. “Okay,” I say after a second. “That’s really… worrying. Like, all of that. Um. Maybe your dad had to leave because of some deal he made with the Fey? I - I don’t know. I’m sorry.”  
  
“That’s not all,” Rune says, getting quieter. “I don’t even know who or what I am anymore either.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I’m listed in that journal, Van.”  
  
“What? Like, you’re half-monster?”  
  
“No. I don’t know. It’s just my name. The last page. 'Lily’. That’s my real name.”  
  
Lily, with a symbol next to it. A symbol next to a lot of monsters. “Ah. Crap,” I say. “That’s extra worrying.”  
  
“No shit.”  
  
“Jacob doesn’t know what it is?”  
  
“Nope. Nobody does, apparently.”  
  
“Mm. Maybe someone does.” I text a photo of the symbol (just the symbol, not the name or anything) to Alexa, and ask her if she knows what it is.  
  
She texts back, “Man I really wish you had texted me about literally anything else.”  
  
I text, “What did you wish I had texted you about instead?” and a winky face. “But seriously, what is it?”  
  
“I’ll give you three guesses.”  
  
“Wait, which question is that answering?”  
  
“It’s a very old, very bad symbol. I’m not sure what exactly it means, but it’s bad. And uh, yeah. Take a guess. Starts with s. Ends with x.”  
  
I’m really, really tempted to joke that she wants to know if I play the sax, but I manage to restrain myself. I just say, “Thanks. Cool beans. And any time we’re in the same town again, hit me up.”  
  
She replies with a sunglasses emoji with two finger gun emojis. Oh, my heart.  
  
I put my phone away, and repeat the symbol-related-only stuff to Rune.  
  
“So there’s a guy with divine magic who claims he was sent by god to protect you, because you’re going to be important somehow,” I say, counting on my fingers. “There’s a powerful fey with a blank check contract with your name on it. And there’s a hunters’ journal going back to the Wild West days, with a mysterious ancient symbol next to your name. There’s a lot of stuff going on about you and it’s definitely, um, got me worried.”  
  
“Now you see why I’m so scared,” Rune says. “I feel lost, and confused, and alone. You guys are the only people I have left.”  
  
“We’re gonna do whatever we can to help you with this,” I say, “ whatever this is. Anything we can do to solve this mystery, or… fix it, if there’s something we can fix. We’ll do it. Um, obviously me and Jacob know now, but do you want to let Marcus in on any of this?”  
  
“No,” she says sourly. “He’s an ass.”  
  
Attagirl. “Yeah,” I say. “I don’t think he really… I don’t think he gets things. Not how things really work.”  
  
“I don’t believe in whatever god he says he was sent by.”  
  
“Mm. I dunno about 'The God’, but we’ve met some gods, and he gets his magic from… somewhere. Who knows what kind of god it really is. Doesn’t matter.” I sigh. “He thinks all humans are created equal. He doesn’t understand things like… Everett Noble.”  
  
“Scumbags like him and Nick don’t deserve to exist,” Rune mutters.  
  
“…Nick?”  
  
She pauses. “Billings,” she says, quietly. “My stepfather.”  
  
“Ah. Is your mother, um… alive?”  
  
She laughs without humor. “As if I fucking care.”  
  
“Ah.” I jot that down in my brain as permission for two-snack liberties in Billings.  
  
After a bit I say, “I wasn’t – um – I never… It never happened to me, personally.” Near-miss tonight though, huh? “But it’s happened to other people I knew. Friends and… loved ones. And it makes me angry to see people I care about get hurt like that, and they never get justice, and the people who hurt them get away with it. Sometimes the law fails. Society fails. Humanity fails to take care of itself.”  
  
I remember Cara telling me her story. Never found the guy. Not the first or last time I heard a story like that. Shittiest thing about immortality is you carry around a collection of horror stories in other people’s traumas, and you can’t even say you’ll carry them to the grave with you, 'cause the grave’s not a guarantee.  
  
“If I’m not human anyway, never gonna be human again, then I might as well not bother following human laws. I should clean up its messes. And… that’s why I started hunting down people like that. And that’s…” I sigh. “That’s what Marcus doesn’t get. He doesn’t know who’s the real monster sometimes.”  
  
After another while, she says, “Van, we’re cool, right? After Kansas?”  
  
“I… hope so? Are we?” I say.  
  
“You know that vision you told me about, the one Lark gave you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Mine went the other way. I watched you kill me.”  
  
“Oh. No. No, that – No,” I say. “That’s not how I experienced it. That’s not what I chose. I wouldn’t.”  
  
“I figured that out by now…”  
  
I gather my thoughts a second. “I know I’m not… trustworthy, or safe, because of what I am.” Especially around kids. So I’ve been told.  
  
“It’s not your fault. Everyone’s gotta eat,” Rune says.  
  
“Yeah, but… I don’t want to eat my friends. I try to make sure I’m not in a position where I’ll lose control and hurt you, because that’s the last thing I wanna do. And I, um. I – Whatever I can do, uh – I’ll try to be the best… person… I can be for you.”  
  
She just kinda nods. I think what I said only made her feel worse, for some reason. Dammit.  
  
“Um, I mean, both me and Jacob, and even Marcus, the last thing any of us wants is something bad happening to you,” I ramble.  
  
She mutters something like, “Things change.”  
  
I know I messed up somewhere, but I don’t know how. There’s a long, awkward silence. “Should… I leave?”  
  
She shrugs.  
  
“…Should I stay here?”  
  
“It’s up to you,” she says, sounding hollow.  
  
“Um. I’ll stay here until Jacob gets back. And then I’ll go take care of feeding. I, uh, I don’t really wanna go back to the hotel alone right now anyway.”  
  
I check my phone. Still no reply from Jacob. Or Marcus, but he’s probably still zonked on widow venom.  
  
Time to research spider-monsters.  
  
I feel really silly about the huge sack of stakes and mallets I got, now.  
  
\---  
  
Jax isn't just any spider-monster. They're an 'arachnoid'. Spider-people with Spider-man powers: Web flinging and wall climbing, mostly. Bliss venom, obviously. Can talk to spiders and control them. They got chitin under their human skin, so they're tough to kill, but weak to fire. Oh, and they can detect blood nearby, even if it's inside a person.  
  
A while passes. I text Jacob, "Hey, when are you coming to get Rune?" No response. "I'm waiting here at the McDonald's with her until you get her." No response. "I need to feed soon. I don't want to leave her alone. But I can't stay here alone with her all night."  
  
Nothing. Marcus is still out for the night, too. It's the first time I've been the sole babysitter. Usually there's somebody else to keep an eye on her. I'm uncomfortably hungry.  
  
Jax texts me. "I really thought we had a connection." And a frowny face.  
  
I text, "You drugged me."  
  
"Not on purpose! You were all in my mouth. I can't help it. The venom's just in my spit."  
  
"So you weren't going to try to eat me?"  
  
"I could tell you don't have any blood, and that's all I eat. I was just there for a fun time," Jax sends. "Besides, I only have to feed once a year."  
  
"Then why Amanda?"  
  
Jax sends a shrug emote, then, "Convenience?"  
  
"Wasn't she just an innocent?"  
  
"She waaas cheating on her husband. Cheating with me. So there's that."  
  
I repeat all this to Rune, ask her what I should say. "That's not a good enough reason," Rune says. "They didn't even try to go after someone bad, like you do."  
  
I agree. I decide to try playing bait again. Jax seems dumb enough to fall for it twice. Best shot at cornering a monster in a big city, without another victim lined up.  
  
"You're right," I send Jax. "I had fun. I'm willing to give it another shot."  
  
Rune gets up to read over my shoulder. "No, don't say that! That sounds too desperate. You have to play it cool."  
  
"Too late now," I say.  
  
Jax takes a minute to reply. "I was thinking of just skipping town actually."  
  
I text, "Won't you consider another staying another night at least?"  
  
"Nooo. Once you have monster hunters on your back, you really need to leave."  
  
I try to think of something fast. I turn so Rune can't read the phone as I send, "Does it help sweeten the deal to mention I don't need to sleep?"  
  
Another long pause. Jax sends me a street corner, tells me to meet them tonight at 8. Of course it's eight. Spiders.  
  
With that taken care of, I say, "Okay, Rune, I gotta go feed. Just -- Please don't go wandering off or getting kidnapped again? Please?"  
  
"I'll stay here," she says.  
  
"You don't have to stay in here all night, but like, at least call us if there's trouble. Just... stay safe."  
  
"I will."  
  
I get up and head out, checking my phone, trying to find any good targets in the recent news. Nothing good. New York's huge and dense, and nothing's in a good range. I scope the shady alleys nearby for any muggings or something. Hell, even a car-jacking. Don't like to go after thieves, but I gotta go after someone.  
  
Do I? I think about when I lived here last. I think about Rune and what I just promised her. I gotta be a better person. If I'm gonna be in this whole parental relationship, I have to get a grip on this hunger. Can't let it run my unlife forever, or I'm gonna end up alone. Again.  
  
I find this little old homeless lady, pushing around a shopping cart full of recyclables. It'd be real fuckin' easy. No struggle, nobody to miss her.  
  
I steel myself and just keep walking. Haven't killed any innocents yet, not gonna start now. I just keep walking, not paying attention to anyone else I pass anymore. Meditating the hunger down, I guess. I gotta be safe -- safe to be around. I have to be, for my friends.  
  
I dip into a random store, buy a thermos (purple, shiny, insulated), head to a butcher's shop, buy some spare pig's blood. I drink from the bucket where nobody's looking, use the rest to fill the thermos. I feel some part of me wanting real bad to reject this, to go hunt down humans instead. I tell myself in my head, blood's blood just the same. Keep walking around, keep thinking it, keep drinking the pig's blood when I feel hungry again. I walk around until the hunger just throws its hands up and says, "Fine!"  
  
It's too little too late for a lot of things, I guess, but I can't fuck up my social life all over again making the same mistakes, being the same bad person that I used to be the last time, and all the other times. Maybe being in New York again helps anchor me.  
  
All I know is, I'm over it now. I'm not gonna lose control again, I can tell.  
  
I head back to McDonald's. Rune's asleep. I sit across from her. Eventually Jacob group-texts everyone an address, tells us to be there at 11am, dressed nicely. I send, "What and why?"  
  
"Brunch with my family."  
  
He doesn't respond to any more texts. Okay then. So now I got a brunch with his parents and an evening hookup with Jax. Just need someone to throw an afternoon meeting at me, and my day's all booked up.  
  
Rune wakes up by morning. We go back to the hotel. Marcus is awake. Everyone gets ready for this brunch thing. I just keep on what I've got. Sky blue turtleneck, corduroy jacket, dark slacks. Tuck the black clutch in my jacket, braid my hair again. Pushing the androgyny's fun.  
  
Jacob's car hasn't been in the lot all night. We catch the subway to the address. Marcus is sobered up and dressed up. Rune's in non-torn jeans, a shirt that doesn't have a skull on it, and no paint stains anywhere. Her hair's also dark candy red now. I say it looks nice.  
  
We get to the place, a fancy country club type-place. Marcus looks disgruntled, Rune looks disgusted, I'm delighted. Working your way up with the in-crowd and getting invited to private club functions is Vampire Culture 101.  
  
We go in, neither of these plebes know what to do here. I go up to the concierge, say we're here for the Baker party. Concierge leads us to a room deeper in, we walk in, see three of the Baker family and none of them are Jacob.  
  
There's Whitney, the mom, she's my age but looks... well, as young as I do too. Hispanic, dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, nice dress with a boat neckline. Then Elliot, boring middle-aged white guy in a casual suit, only interesting feature's his green eyes. Then Jodie, looks a little older than Jacob, long brown hair, got her dad's eyes.  
  
I wave. "Hey." I'm already grinning.  
  
"Hello," Whitney says. "Where's Jacob?"  
  
"Dunno."  
  
They look confused. She squints at me. "Wait. You look familiar. Have we met?"  
  
I grin more. "Oh yeah." Before she can stop me I go on. "About thirty years ago. New York."  
  
Marcus snarks, "Oh, you mean the city we're in right now?"  
  
"Yes, because both of us travel a lot. Duh?"  
  
Whitney says, "How did we -?"  
  
"Party." More grinning.  
  
Jodie cuts in, sounding irritated, "That is more than we need to know."  
  
"Pff. Nothing happened," I say, then add, "between us."  
  
"That is definitely more than we needed to hear."  
  
"'Kay. Anyway, I'm Van."  
  
"Jodie Baker."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I'm sorry? Have WE met?" she says.  
  
"Yes. I mean. No. Not... technically?"  
  
She leans forward, kinda glaring. "What is that supposed to mean?"  
  
"There was like, a vision, Marcus and I sort of saw a bunch of people Jacob knew in his memories... Anyway."  
  
Marcus and Rune introduce themselves and get seated. Rune sits a seat away from him and looks at me to sit between them, so I do. Marcus gets up to start helping himself to coffee and food from the buffet immediately. As soon as he sits down, Rune asks if he got her any bacon. He gets up to get her bacon.  
  
Whitney asks us who else is coming. I tell her I dunno that either. I say maybe Ezekiel and Michael, if this is about hunter stuff. She says she doesn't know what this is about. Jacob still hasn't texted anybody.  
  
We make some small talk about what we all do. Jodie gets pissy about making small talk. I talk about monster hunting stuff instead, tell them how we all met Jacob. Jodie gets pissy talking about hunter stuff. Girl can't be pleased, damn.  
  
When Marcus says, totally straight-faced, "When we faced the dragon, we recruited the aide of another and nailed it hard," I just start laughing. He gives me a weird look.  
  
"One of us did," I say with a huge grin.  
  
Nobody else finds it as funny. No respect, no respect at all.  
  
I finally ask, "So, you guys got any embarrassing baby photos of Jacob?"  
  
"Do I ever!" Whitney says and whips out her phone. All her storage data is family photos. Mostly embarrassing ones. I learn Jacob once dressed up as a storybook wizard, little star-covered cape and pointy hat, it's fucking fantastic.  
  
Jacob walks in while we're looking them over. I shoot him a shit-eating grin. "Hey there. Just in time fo-whoa."  
  
He has also dyed his hair. It's also candy red.  
  
"You guys coordinate that or something?" I ask him and Rune. Neither answers.  
  
Marcus says, "Well, Jacob, did you take a page out of Van's book and decide to start wearing Aviators indoors?"  
  
Jacob pours himself coffee and doesn't answer.  
  
"Hey. Hey," I say. "For one, I'm not wearing mine. For two, there's nothing wrong with that. Aviators are cool. Everybody could do with a pair of Ray-Bans."  
  
"Maybe I should look into acquiring a pair for myself, then," Marcus says.  
  
"Nah. You're not cool enough. You need to have an intrinsic coolness to wear them effectively."  
  
There's more awkward silences, barbs and snarking around with everyone, and Jacob won't talk to anyone for the most part, won't even tell us what we're all here for. Finally he admits he was super drunk last night, and Drunk Jacob made day plans to spite him. He shows us his eyes. Red as his hair. Damn. And people wonder why I don't drink.  
  
I get bored of all this so I look at his parents and go, "Hey, you guys know about all his tattoos?"  
  
The coffee pot freezes over in his hand. His mom leans forward and tells me to go on.  
  
"So he's got the wizard guild tattoo, of course," I say.  
  
"Of course." She shows off hers.  
  
"Then the snowflakes on his torso. And the word 'His' on his collarbone."  
  
Whitney looks delighted. Elliot looks as stimulated as pudding. Jodie keeps looking pissy that conversation keeps happening in the same room as her. Jacob keeps trying to act like he doesn't exist. Rune asks why she still can't get a tattoo.  
  
The weird, awkward brunch conversation keeps going. Whitney brings up that time the Bakers tried to hunt me (until Whitney recognized me and let me go). Rune asks about Silas, but doesn't tell them how she knows him. Marcus and I end up going into more detail about Dr. Lark and Jacob's vision. Not a lot of detail, just the part that it was his last day with Adrian, except in that one Adrian killed everyone.  
  
"Oh. So when you said you met me in a vision, it was a vision of my death," Jodie says (pissily, naturally). "Good. That's great to hear."  
  
Jacob suddenly drops the bomb that he saw Adrian last night. We try to get any more info out of him. Like, did anyone die this time? Did the demon blow up any more hospitals? (Then we gotta explain about the Ashland hospital. Whoops.)  
  
He avoids answering for like ten minutes before slapping down four tickets for something. Says Adrian dropped them off and we gotta use 'em.  
  
"What're they tickets to? A My Chemical Romance concert?" I say.  
  
"No. For one, the band broke up," Jacob says.  
  
"Oh. Sorry to hear that."  
  
Marcus asks who MCR is. Rune says they're a lame goth band. Marcus says they're probably not worth his time. Jacob gets defensive. I figure I've ribbed him enough for now, so I take his side defending them. We go on this stupid tangent about the band for a while before Jacob clarifies the tickets are actually for a cruise ship.  
  
He explains, "We're supposed to keep this ship from sinking."  
  
"I'm sorry, what?"  
  
"This ship is going to sink and thousands are going to die, if we don't stop it. According to him."  
  
"This sounds like a trap," Marcus says.  
  
"For once, I agree with Marcus," Rune says. "I don't like this. I don't wanna go."  
  
"If we don't accomplish what he wants, then he'll kill us. Or specifically, he'll kill all of my friends and family, but he'll spare me," Jacob says.  
  
"Well, I don't... really like that outcome at all, either. But I don't wanna force Rune to go if she doesn't want to. Can we call in substitutes? I don't wanna find out the hard way it had to be Rune by getting on the boat, and then the demon shows up to kill Rune because she's not on the boat too."  
  
Jacob doesn't really know for sure. He thinks we could switch with someone else, as long as the boat doesn't sink, but who knows. He says it leaves from Florida in a couple weeks. We ask how Adrian knows the boat's going to sink. Jacob says he doesn't know how Adrian knows. We ask if he thinks it is or if it's a trick. He says he doesn't know.  
  
"So, how's it going to sink? Kraken?" I ask.  
  
He doesn't know.  
  
"Okay, so. We get on board, break onto the bridge, hold the captain hostage so the boat can't leave. Easy-peasy," I say.  
  
"Or we call and make a bomb threat," Rune says. "That'll shut them down for a few weeks at least."  
  
"And we get arrested for terrorism?" Jacob sighs. "Besides, it has to leave port to reach its destination. That's part of the mission."  
  
"What's its destination?" Marcus asks.  
  
"Bermuda."  
  
"Oh. Okay. Bermuda Triangle situation," I say. "Not a kraken. Unless a kraken is responsible for the Bermuda Triangle. Doubt it, unless kraken arms are long enough to reach airplanes."  
  
We go off on a tangent about the reach of kraken tentacles and argue about if we should get on the ship or not or call in replacements or what. We can't reach a consensus, so I change the topic to Jax.  
  
I tell them all about the arachnoid, what I learned about arachnoids, and that I'm meeting Jax tonight so we better come up with a plan by then, or they're gonna escape the city alive.  
  
"By the way, they don't have to bite you to drug you," I say. "It's, um. Long story short, do not kiss an arachnoid."  
  
Whitney grins. "Oh, everyone's made that mistake at least once."  
  
Jacob and Jodie both look like they wanna die.  
  
\---  
  
Whitney gets out a big cake and tells us it's Jacob's birthday. He's turning 30. Everyone except Rune sings "Happy Birthday". All the Bakers and Marcus have cake.  
  
The party winds down eventually, we head out, get in touch with Ezekiel and Michael. Jacob updates them on the monster. We agree to all meet up at the hotel to go over the plan.  
  
While the four of us wait in the parking lot, Rune suddenly says, "So who else thinks those two are together?"  
  
Everyone kinda shrugs. Then she asks Jacob if he'd be down for a threesome with them if they are. It takes all my willpower not to laugh. I say I dunno what their sexualities are, except that for at least one or both of them, it involved a siren at least once.  
  
The two dudes show up and roast me for not telling them about the arachnoid sooner. I tell them I forgot. I don't mention being high as balls. I fill them in on everything else I know about arachnoids.  
  
I come up with a plan: We use those two water pistols from Nevada, fill 'em up with lighter fluid, douse Jax, light them on fire. I go to a store and buy the lighter fluid, buncha matches and lighters, and s'more fixings to throw off suspicion. I get back, we fill up the pistols, I keep one, Michael takes the other.  
  
I ask Rune if she wants one. She says she can just light any fluid on fire with her lightning.  
  
"Your what now?"  
  
"Jacob's been teaching me magic."  
  
"Neato."  
  
I point out that Jax can sense blood, so everybody better be a block away or Jax won't even come close to me again. Michael says it's not a problem. We ask if he doesn't have blood.  
  
"That's a really personal question to ask, don't you think?" he says defensively.  
  
"It's kind of important, because Jax can tell you're there if you do. So do you have blood or not?" I say.  
  
He sighs. "No."  
  
"Okay. What are you?"  
  
"Again, that's a really personal question."  
  
"Look. We're both monsters here."  
  
"Fine. I'm a siren."  
  
There's a big, collective, "OH," with the party.  
  
Jacob says, "Where are your wings?"  
  
I say, "I thought sirens were like, mermai-- uh, mer...mans. Mermen."  
  
Mike gets all defensive again until we convince him to just show us. He takes off his shirt, and that symbol I saw earlier on his chest is part of a big rune circle on his torso. One of the lines is just drawn on with an office pen or something. He licks his thumb and smudges it, and sprouts a pair of wings.  
  
"Neato," I say.  
  
He draws the line back on and his wings disappear.  
  
"So when you said you encountered a siren, you didn't mean you killed one. You recruited one," I say.  
  
Zeke glares. "Well, yeah, but I didn't want to go into that."  
  
"You are the one who brought up the siren in the first place."  
  
"Yes. And you know what? Sometimes when someone asks you a question, you just automatically answer it without realizing you didn't want to give that answer, and you just have to live with the fact they know that thing now."  
  
"Mm. Happens to me all the time. Anyway. Let's get into position."  
  
I chill out at the street corner while except except Mike drives away. Mike chills out in the general area, somewhere out of sight. I hide the water pistol in my holster under my jacket. What a stupid thing to have in a holster. Hell of a thing to explain if I get stopped and frisked by any cops right now.  
  
A little after 8 o'clock, a web rope drops off the abandoned building behind me. I call up, "Jax?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Is this a Rapunzel situation? Am I supposed to climb up?"  
  
"That was the plan, yeah."  
  
"'Kay."  
  
I climb up to the roof. The place looks like it tried to collapse at one point, and all that's holding it together is an assload of webbing. Probably literally an assload. Spiders, man.  
  
Jax is hanging there upside-down. I make some small-talk, commiserate about hunters and how we all gotta eat. Jax asks if I wanna get this thing started. I ask if the venom's gonna be a problem.  
  
"As long as you don't kiss me this time," Jax says. "We can do this without doing that, if you want."  
  
"Yeah. I kinda prefer to have all my mental faculties." I look at all the webbing. "Is there, uh, some furniture up there?"  
  
"No, just webbing, sorry. But some of the apartments below were furnished before the place was abandoned. There might still be a bed or two down there."  
  
Going inside is a bad idea. Gotta stay out in the open. I wanna try to get this thing close enough to douse with propellant, too.  
  
"No, up there's fine," I say.  
  
"Okay!" Jax shoots me with a web outta their hand, and yanks me up into another web. I'm stuck fast. Crap. They come over to me while I'm trying and failing to pull myself free.  
  
Man, though, it's really a shame we have to kill this one. Like, androgyny? Bondage? Can pick me up and throw me around like a toy? After all this, I really hope we run into Alexa again soon, 'cause damn, what a waste with this one.  
  
"Um," I say as they get up to me. "Wait, um. I want - Not this? Like this? Please?"  
  
I worry for a second Jax is gonna say no and just go to town, and I'll have to just shoot myself for being an idiot and getting in the same bad situation twice in a row. Jax looks disappointed, but luckily un-sticks me.  
  
I reach back and pull the water pistol, in the same second Jacob somewhere shoots an ice bolt into the sky like a flare. I pull the trigger in the same second Jax spots the ice bolt, and lunges at me. Fangs in MY neck, for once. And I'm blissed out again. Jax shoves me down and webs me to the floor, or whatever surface we're on.  
  
I don't know much of what the hell is going on from my position. Rune and Marcus end up on the roof. Marcus swings his fire sword, cutting down webbing, setting fire everywhere, pieces of the building start collapsing. Jax springs away. Rune rushes over, tries to cut me free with her silver dagger, but the web won't budge.  
  
"Sorry, Van, this is going to hurt," she says, and sets the bindings on fire.  
  
It doesn't hurt, actually. I feel it, and I'm burning while it's burning off of me, but I can't feel pain right now. This shit's more potent than the best opiates I've ever been pumped with.  
  
The whole place is burning around us by now. She pulls me up, pulls me to the roof exit, we're going down a stairwell when an actual spider attacks us. I think it's a big spider monster - not an arachnoid, but like, actual eight-legs deal. I'm so damn high though, it's hard to tell what's happening.  
  
Rune kicks its ass apparently, and rushes us down the stairs, and I'm not going fast enough to outrun the destruction apparently, 'cause she pushes me down the stairs ahead of her. I lay at the bottom landing, dazed but not hurt.  
  
Everything's collapsing, burning, the place is coming down around us. Michael swoops in with his wings out, carries me and Rune to safety. Our party rushes back to the hotel. I dunno where Zeke and Mike go. Away, I guess.  
  
Jacob hauls me to a bed, gets my shoes and jacket off, tries to get me to settle down. I have a weird trip, getting confused, trying to wander off. I think I try to steal the lamp off the nightstand before he tells me to put it back. There's yelling from the other room, can't tell what it is, doesn't bother me in this state anyway.  
  
Jacob finally gets me tucked under the covers. Some part of my brain goes back to childhood with all this, and I call him Grandpa and ask him to put on my favorite record. He knows what to put on. ABBA, duh.  
  
I wiggle in the bed in a feeble attempt to dance. "Yaaay." That's the last thing I remember before I eventually fall asleep.


	8. Creative Differences

  
I wake up in the hotel room. Quiet, not dark, morning light poking under the curtain. I'm not alone. Marcus is sitting there in a chair next to the bed. Guess since he didn't get drugged this time, he got stuck on babysitting duty so Jacob could get his two hours of sleep.  
  
I sit up. Marcus says he has some things he wants to say to me. I say okay.  
  
"So, first thing -- Well, they're all part of the same thing, really," he says. "Look, I... know I don't know your story or how you ended up like this."  
  
"Mhm."  
  
"But I know you're trying to be good, in your own way. I realize you... pick your targets because you think it's the best thing to do in your situation."  
  
"I see."  
  
"I guess what I'm really here to say is that if there's anything I can do to help you with your problem, just name it, and I'll do it."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I know you're important to Rune, and to Jacob," he says. "And it's what I'm here to do. To do good."  
  
"Okay. So it's not because you actually care about me or anything. I'm just another task on the to-do list."  
  
"I do care about you."  
  
"You don't want to help me because you like me, but because you hate what I am." He starts to talk, I cut him off, calmly. "It's not like I'm particularly bothered. I don't really care what you think about me. You're not the first or last person to hate me. I've been used to people not liking me for my whole existence, so I'm pretty used to also not giving a shit about what most people think."  
  
He sighs at me. "The offer is still there. I just want to help."  
  
"Okay. Well. I guess it depends on what kind of help you're offering. If it's like, finding a cure for vampirism, then that's gonna be a hard 'No'," I say.  
  
He sighs again.  
  
I say, "If it's feeding, then... Well, it used to be that I could bite someone and it would hardly hurt them. It was fine. It got more dangerous over time. Nowadays, if I bite someone, they're halfway to the hospital already. So I don't want to bite my teammates. If you really wanna donate blood, you'll have to cut yourself to bleed it out, and then give it to me. But honestly, I don't really need that anymore. I'm fine. I had a talk with Rune the other night, and..."  
  
I pause. Not my place to spill all that. 'Specially not to him. "I told her -- ah, it doesn't matter. But I went for a walk after. And meditated I guess. I was hungry. But I got a handle on it, for her sake. I don't think I need to feed on humans anymore, I can make do with animal blood. I'm not gonna lose control again."  
  
Marcus nods. "That's good to know. And about Everett Noble... I know you think you were just doing the right thing. I forgive you."  
  
I narrow my eyes a little. "I didn't ask for it," I say.  
  
"I know, but I still --"  
  
"Because I'm not sorry."  
  
He sighs. "Fine. Whatever. Enjoy your day." He gets up to leave.  
  
"Hey. Excuse me?" I move to the edge of the bed. "Look. You know what? Noble deserved it."  
  
"That isn't our job to decide that."  
  
"Actually, it is. It's my job now. I'll tell you what I told Rune: Sometimes humanity fails to look out for its own, and evil people like him fall through the cracks, and if I'm not even going to be treated like a human anymore anyway, then I'll take out monsters like him. 'Cause guess what? Sometimes humans are the monsters we have to kill."  
  
"We were not put on this Earth to be the judge, jury, and executioner of anyone."  
  
"That's exactly what we've been doing all along. You know how many monsters used to be human? And sometimes they're monsters while they're still human. Sometimes the best thing you can do for humans is to take out the humans that hurt innocents. He was the one who murdered someone first, remember? He took an innocent woman's life because she tried to save her daughter from him."  
  
"I know that. But --"  
  
"You clearly don't, because you prioritized his safety over Rune's. You put her life in danger to protect a rapist and murderer," I say. I'm getting angry now, but I don't raise my voice. Rule number one is keep calm.  
  
"Alright, look, if it came down to it, and I absolutely had to choose between her life or his, then obviously I would choose hers," he says.  
  
"Good."  
  
"But I'm not about to go out and choose to kill any human if I don't have to in order to defend myself or someone else."  
  
"What about state-sanctioned killings? Ya got a thing against legal executions for the actually convicted, too?"  
  
"Yes. I am against the death penalty."  
  
"Okay, then at least you're not a total hypocrite on that one thing."  
  
"I'm glad you see that. But Van, if you want my advice, if you want people to treat you like a human being, you should start acting like one."  
  
"I'm sorry, excuse me? Are you even any more human than I am? You got a magical upgrade just like me, along with a divinely-granted license to kill, and you made it the reason for your whole existence. You might not have to drink blood like I do, but the only thing sustaining you anymore is violence just the same. And you're right, you don't know my story. But yours? So, what, you jumped on the magic killer wagon because you were bored of being a janitor?"  
  
He just sighs again. "I didn't exactly have a choice. It was sort of thrust upon me."  
  
"Okay. I see. So you have to believe in it. You have to, because without it, there's nothing left for you. I can see where Lark was coming from when he said all that. That's why you're afraid of losing faith, you can't give up and be wrong about anything."  
  
Marcus starts to talk, I cut him off again with, "At least I know who created me."  
  
"And is this person still alive?"  
  
"Weren't very alive in the first place."  
  
"You know what I mean, Van."  
  
"I do. The answer's 'I don't know and it doesn't matter'."  
  
"Have you ever read the Book of Job?"  
  
"I have no idea what that is."  
  
"It's a book in the Bible."  
  
"I wasn't raised religious," I say.  
  
"Of course not," he sighs.  
  
"Marcus, not all life is created equal. Not everyone deserves to exist. People who don't do anything with their lives except hurt good people? Shouldn't be left alive to keep doing that."  
  
"I don't believe that you're better than anyone. I don't believe that I'M better than anyone," he says. "I don't believe in people being intrinsically good or evil."  
  
"I dunno about intrinsically, but some people just do bad things and have to be stopped. I don't really care if I'm better than anyone, but I definitely think certain people are worse than others, and that's what matters."  
  
"You're wrong."  
  
"That's your opinion, and I don't really care what your opinion is."  
  
“Van, if you didn’t have to feed on anyone -- If you didn’t have to kill anyone -- Would you still do it?”  
  
I don’t point out I don’t have to anyway. I don’t point out I never technically had to kill, if I have friends willing to bleed for me. Doesn’t matter though, ‘cause I’m sick of his judgmental bullshit.  
  
I still say, “No,” at first, ‘cause I know I wouldn’t be that bothered to hunt down strangers. I wouldn’t have any time crunch, wouldn’t worry about accidentally killing someone I cared about instead.  
  
Then I remember Nick of Billings, Montana. I didn’t exactly promise to take him out, but he’s an enemy anyway. He hurt Rune. He’s gotta go down.  
  
I say, “Yes. Maybe. I guess. It’s not like being a vampire is why I do it now anyway. It just makes it easier.”  
  
"This was a waste of my time," he says and turns away.  
  
He puts his hand on the door knob. He stops, with a weird look on his face for a second. Not like someone who forgot to turn the oven off, but like he just realized he can turn the oven on in the first place. I just sit there waiting for him to go away so I can take a shower already.  
  
He turns back to me. "Van, would you hold out your hand for me?"  
  
\---  
  
Marcus walks toward me with his hand out.  
  
I get nervous. Did he decide to suddenly smite-murder me after all? I take stock of all the exits -- door, windows, bathroom or closet if I have to -- and where my phone and weapons all are. I stand up to put us at even height, and put my hand out at full arm's length, watching him carefully.  
  
He touches my hand. Nothing happens for a few moments. Then suddenly, there's a flash, his eyes glow, a magic blast blows our hair back, and -- something's wrong. Something is super fucking wrong.  
  
I feel pain -- hungry, super hungry, starving hungry, I'm weak all over, groggy, short of breath, start gasping, I'm breathing now. I don't have to breathe, I shouldn't have to, but I am, I do now. I feel suddenly hot all over, then just warm, I look and there's blood in my veins again. My heart's pumping, and it's going faster and faster 'cause I'm freaking the fuck out.  
  
I realize what happened. Of course. Of fucking course.  
  
"It's you," I say, and I leap-roll across the bed to the nightstand, grab my phone, ring the group in a group call. It's Lark, shit, Dr. Lark found us, he got in and he made me human again, I'm alone with him, gotta call for help and get outta here --  
  
Marcus, Lark, Larkus, whoever, starts booming his voice at me like a megaphone, yelling at me inhumanly loud not to be afraid, God's with us now and God's gonna make us strong and hold us up. Getting roared at about divine intervention just freaks me out more.  
  
Marcus's phone starts ringing. The one I'm calling in the group call.  
  
It's not Lark. It's Marcus. I don't understand anything.  
  
"What just happened? What did you do? What did you do to me?" I say.  
  
"I fixed you."  
  
"What the hell?"  
  
"I had a vision, and I knew I could fix you. So I did. I cured your vampirism, and all your human diseases, too. You're welcome."  
  
Rule number one is stay calm.  
  
"What the hell?! You made me human?! How dare you! How dare you -- after I just told you -- I JUST said I NEVER wanted to be cured, and you just, you --"  
  
I start to shake with anger. I've rarely been so viciously angry in my life. If he'd tried that and I'd stopped him, I'd break his goddamn arms for the audacity. As it is, though, I'm now even more weak to him than before, I feel downright violated, and the terror over thinking he was Lark doesn't go away, it just changes to a brand-new terror of realizing I don't need the embodiment of fear to embody my worst fears.  
  
Marcus gives me a smug look deserving of Lark's face instead. "I'm not sorry."  
  
"Do you know what you -- You made me weak, Marcus! Vulnerable! Vulnerable as -- as all the -- now I'm -- what the hell? Who gave you the right to make this choice for me?!"  
  
"I removed a vampire from the world. And I cured a sick little girl in the process. Like I said, you're welcome."  
  
Rule number two is let them treat you like a dog.  
  
"Fuck you!" I shout. "I was right, you never cared about me! You hate me, and you only care about what you can force me into being to fit your fucking religious agenda! You don't even fucking care about Rune, she's just another hole on your punch-card! You don't give a shit about anyone but yourself, we're just a job to you so you can feel superior! Fuck you, and get the fuck out of my room!"  
  
He takes a second too fucking long to get out of my fucking way, so I storm by him, out of the hotel, and head to the car. Parking lot asphalt hurts my bare feet. Goddammit.  
  
I throw open the trunk, the doors, looking for that guitar, I'm in a red-hot rage and I'm going to take that thing and smash it in front of him. I can't hurt him, but I can hurt something he likes, and I need vengeance any way I can get it.  
  
It's not there, and I don't wanna walk back in, my feet hurt and everything sucks and I hate everything and I hate him. I don't want to see his face again.  
  
I realize the phone call's still on. I hang up. I sit on the trunk of the car and pull my feet up. My little burst of rage starts melting already. I curl up and hug my knees until Jacob finds me.  
  
"Hey... I know the answer's obvious, but... are you okay?" he asks.  
  
Rule number three is to let them think you're weak where you're not, but never show your real weakness.  
  
"No," I say. "I'm -- Fuck. Why did he do this? What the hell? Was he just that bitter about me being stronger and faster, that I'm actually good at protecting Rune, that he just had to go and make me weak again? Is that it, does he have to get me out of the way so he can replace me after all?"  
  
"Van, no one's replacing you," Jacob says firmly.  
  
"But I can't -- I don't know how to be a human, Jacob. I never did, I never got to be a real human in the first place, not really. All I was ever good at was being a vampire. I don't even have magic like you guys."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Everything I was taught was just, how to keep alive. How to --" I try to keep my voice steady, 'cause I feel it trying to break. "I just learned how to control it, Jacob. I didn't even have to kill anyone anymore, and he just, he did this anyway, just to spite me."  
  
"I'm sorry, Van. I don't know what to say. I didn't even think this was possible."  
  
"I tried so hard to be good for you all. I was doing good. I was getting better. I didn't want to be a burden anymore, I didn't want to have to leave another group again, I didn't want to get --" I drop my head on my knees. "Now I'm just another mouth to feed."  
  
"You're not," he says. "That's not how I see you at all. You've never been a burden. You know I'll still take care of you, right? We're not just going to abandon you."  
  
"Thank you." I sigh. “I feel like an idiot. I thought, even if he didn’t like me, he wouldn’t just literally betray me. I was stupid, and I trusted him.”  
  
I hear yelling from inside the hotel, lights start blinking like there's a power surge. Guess Rune found Marcus.  
  
"They're probably going to call the cops soon," Jacob says. "We shouldn't still be here when they get here."  
  
"I'll get my stuff." I uncurl, then pause. "Jacob, I know I said I don't have to kill anymore. But there's one last person I -- There's a guy like Everett Noble. I'm not saying we have to go, or that you have to be involved. But I don't think I can handle it on my own, if we're ever in the area."  
  
"I'll help you do what you need to do."  
  
"Are you sure? I don't... want to force --"  
  
"Van, I understand that sometimes humans are the monsters we have to hunt."  
  
"There's also, um. I -- Jacob, I know things about vampires that I shouldn't know now, if I'm mortal." I feel shaky again. "My sire -- I don't know how he'd -- shit, pretend I didn't say he. Whatever. Um. I want to turn back, Jacob. But I don't think he would do it. He only turned me because I was sick. I wasn't... viable. For feeding on, or... or for continuing the bloodline. I wasn't an asset, so he just turned me and set me loose. And if he ever finds out I'm mortal again, I'm like this, I don't know what he'll do."  
  
"I'll protect you. Any way that I can," Jacob says. "If we have to hunt down your sire first, we'll do it. But for now we really have to get out of here."  
  
We go back in. I get my shoes and coat on, get my stuff outta the room, put everything in the car, go back to find the others 'cause they're not outside yet.  
  
I find Rune standing over Marcus in the hotel hallway. He's burnt and slumped against a wall, conscious but not fighting back. Electricity's sparking over her fists while she screams at him.  
  
"What fucking right did you have to do that to them, Marcus?! You had NO right! Van made their choice and you took that choice away!"  
  
"I cured a vampire and a sick little girl," he says.  
  
"Van didn't WANT to be cured! You fucking knew that! You act so high and mighty trying to be my protector, but you know who's been the best fucking protector so far? Van! Where were you when Van was trying to protect me from the revenant? You were getting your ass handed to you! Where were you when Van took a dragon's breath hit for me? You were lying in the dirt after getting your ass handed to you! Where you when the shapeshifter nearly caved my skull in, when Van took a bullet to the head to protect me? You weren't even there yet, and I could've used some help then!"  
  
"We need to get out of here," Jacob says.  
  
Marcus heals himself. Rune's still sparking. I hold up a hand to keep her from zapping him again.  
  
Rule number four is don't threaten or attack anyone unless you have to.  
  
I march over and I punch Marcus in the fucking face. "You deserved that, asshole," I sneer.  
  
"Look, my job --"  
  
"Yeah, your job, you don't care about Rune, you don't care about anyone! You're the one on a power trip acting like the judge, jury, and executioner here!"  
  
He stands up. "I was sent here to protect her, and --"  
  
"I was doing a better job of it than you all along and you just --"  
  
"Oh shut up already, you stupid fucking bitch!"  
  
"Fuck you!" I swing at him again, he punches me back harder.  
  
Yeah, he totally really cares about my well-being.  
  
"I hope someday you feel weak and helpless and scared," I say.  
  
"I have."  
  
"Not enough yet, you haven’t."  
  
"We don't have time for this," Jacob says. "We have to leave, now."  
  
Marcus starts preaching some stupid fucking bullshit I don't care about again. I storm out without looking at him. Rune follows me to the car, we get in the back.  
  
"Are you okay?" she asks.  
  
My anger's melting again. I hate it, but I can't hold on to any righteous rage if I can't even put hurt on the guy who did this to me. Now I just have a sore hand and a bruised face.  
  
"No," I say quietly.  
  
"He had no right to do this to you."  
  
"I thought he was Lark," I say. "He’s doing Lark’s job better than Lark. This -- this is my worst fear. He knows that, and he still -- How can someone who claims to be an agent of a good God come along and be exactly like an evil god of fear?”  
  
"I don’t know," Rune says.  
  
I double over, doing my best to curl up again. I'm shaking again, or still shaking from before, I can't tell. "I -- I'm terrified. I'm weak. I don't know how to protect myself, I'm so used to -- I can't protect you anymore, and..."  
  
Rule number five is not to share our secrets with anyone, because no one can be trusted.  
  
I put my head in my hands. "You know how the Walkers made a deal with the nuckelavee? It was like that for the Renards. That's how I knew a vampire in the first place. An old family friend. The vampire looked after us, because the Renards were a blood bank."  
  
"Ugh."  
  
"I'm the last Renard. Everyone else died. I was too sick to feed from and I'd never have kids. But now I'm... I'm mortal again. And if I AM healthy, I -- my sire might --"  
  
"Is there any way for you to go back to being a vampire?"  
  
"I have to get turned back, but... my old sire won't, even if we could find... My only choice is to find another type of my breed, the Old Ones, if I want to be like myself again..."  
  
"If you get turned into a vampire again, do you... have to start all over?"  
  
"I -- I don’t know."  
  
I hate the thought of being dangerous again. Having to relearn control. I can’t worry about that now. I have a frail body right here to worry about, only this time it’s mine.  
  
What if I get sick again? He said he cured it, but how do I know it won't just come back? Unless he fixed the shit genes, the ones that made me born with an immune system that ate me from the inside out, I won't last long.  
  
Maybe it'll take a few years, 'cause it took a few years until my pancreas was wrecked the first time. My insulin, then my joints, skin, nerves, my blood. My kidney, and even getting a transplant couldn't save me, the new one just failed faster. If replacing my organs couldn't fix me, how do I know this is gonna stick?  
  
"I don't even know what's safe to eat," I say. "I don't know if I have to start watching my blood sugar again. He just -- He condemned me to die. He hated me so much he had to... If I have to die, if I have to get old and be mortal and --"  
  
I don't know where it comes from, the next thought to hit me outta left field. I don't know how long that's been buried in my brain. Never relevant, so I never thought about it, like I don't think about most things. Suddenly all the old shit's relevant again after all. I feel thirty years younger in all the worst ways.  
  
"I thought at least if I became immortal, it would make my mother's death worth it."  
  
I break down crying.  
  
Rune stays quiet, touches my shoulder. I lean into it. She hugs me. I cry onto hers.  
  
\---  
  
Jacob gets in the driver's seat. Tells us he kicked Marcus out of the party, sent the guy to the nearest bus stop. Doesn't matter where the asshole goes from there, as long as nobody's left at the hotel when the cops arrive.  
  
We drive outta there. Jacob brings up the story of Job, from the Bible. Job was a real righteous guy. Never did anything wrong with his life. So Satan made a bet he could turn the guy bad, and God took the bet, and let Satan fuck over this poor guy and killed his family and destroy his whole life.  
  
Jacob says sometimes God is an uncaring dick who lets evil have its way with us just to see what happens. I feel like that's not what Marcus was going to tell me when he started talking about Job. It helps though. I guess. It doesn't really make me feel better about what happened, but smack-talking God gives me vindication.  
  
We drive to another part of Manhattan. I'm still starving. I break out the s'mores fixings I bought earlier. I devour all the graham crackers in one go, then start on the chocolate and marshmallows (using a lighter to toast 'em, why not?) before Rune yanks them away and gives me a big box of Cheez-Its instead. Says all that sugar on an empty stomach is bad for me. Hmf. Hypocrite. (I know she's right, though.)  
  
Jacob says I should get checked over by a doctor. I agree. Who knows if my old sicknesses will come back? And thirty years of missed immunizations. Not like there's new diseases though, and I already caught the old ones the first time.  
  
He says the Bakers have a family physician he can call. I ask if I can use my real name, or if I need a pseudonym. He says she's used to weirdness and magic.  
  
We get to a motel, book a room, call the doctor. While Jacob's on the phone, I realize I'm in some new pain, and I go to the bathroom and get outta my too-small sports bra. I got in the habit of buying a size or two down to keep myself looking flat, 'cause I didn't have to worry about crushed ribs or lungs.  
  
I come outta the bathroom. Jacob's still on the phone.  
  
"Well, I'm gonna have to go shopping soon," I say to Rune. "For human stuff. Girly stuff. Bras and period shit." Ugh. I never wanted to deal with those again either. Fucking Marcus put me back on the monthlies.  
  
Rune looks distracted. She suddenly asks me, "Van, what can you tell me about Cain?"  
  
"...Where did you hear that name?"  
  
"While we were in the car earlier, something happened to me."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Someone... visited me."  
  
"Cain?!"  
  
"No, someone who told me about Cain. Someone who's called 'Fate'. He's like Lark, except instead of being Fear, he's the embodiment of Fate. He came to me in a vision. And I asked him if we can get your vampirism back, and he said your old sire can't do it. It has to be Cain."  
  
"Can't as in, my sire physically can't make me a vampire again after I got cured, or can't as in just won't do it if I ask?"  
  
"Can't," she says. "Is Cain a vampire?"  
  
I say, "He's -- uh. Yeah. He's the first vampire. Um, look, you probably shouldn't mention him around anyone else, because vampires don't really like people knowing about this stuff. And they might kill you."  
  
"The first vampire? Ever? Fate said he's also the same guy from the Bible."  
  
"Yeah. Same guy. Cain-vampire is Bible-vampire. He's the first of my bloodline. He's THE Old One, which I just suddenly realized I never told you about in the first place."  
  
She gives me a funny look.  
  
"Right, okay, so. I guess since Fate decided to spill the beans on that already, you can probably put together the rest, but yeah. He's the progenitor, in a way, of my type of vampire." I sigh. "Crap. This is... heavy stuff. I guess that means he's still kicking around somewhere, but I wouldn't even know where to start looking for him. Bible-land? Wherever that is. The Middle East, I guess?"  
  
Maybe Silas Vallens knows, though. Hm. I mention that Silas wrote Cain's name in the journal, next to one of those symbols.  
  
"That's all I can tell you. I don't mean I can't tell you because of a secret code about it, I just don't know any more than you do now," I say.  
  
"Speaking of my dad," Rune says. "I asked Fate about him too. He's trapped in Fairyland. So's Basil."  
  
"Basil?"  
  
"My brother."  
  
"I didn't even know you had a brother."  
  
"He's my baby brother. My dad made a deal with the Broker like I did. A deal to give up Basil to the fairies. Except he wasn't put back in our world like I was. He was allowed a way out, except he has to find it, so now he's stuck there, wandering and looking for an exit."  
  
"That's --" I frown. "Your brother. His child. He -- ugh. I don't know what to think of him now. I don't know what he's like. I hope that wasn't on purpose, and he just got tricked, and not..."  
  
"And now the Broker has a contract on me, too," Rune says.  
  
"Yeah. That's really. Worrying. I don't like that. You don't, um... have any... offspring, right? I hope."  
  
She looks grossed out by the thought. "No way."  
  
"Okay. So that's good. But there's probably not a time limit on this thing, so if you have kids in the future, who knows. This Broker guy's playing a long game. He might show up any time to ask for something. We don't even know what." I sigh. "I mean, I guess we can kill him, but that's not going to be easy."  
  
"There's something else. What the vision was really about. Fate told me that I... have a destiny."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"I'm supposed to kill Lark. It's my mission."  
  
"That's -- hrm." I put my hands on my hips. "I kinda don't like that either. I mean yeah, it'd be nice to kill Lark. Dunno if killing Fear is going to screw up the world though. Like, does that destroy the emotion of fear itself, or just that one embodiment of it? Ugh, I don't wanna think about it. The question is, do you want to do it?"  
  
"I guess. If it will help my family. And getting rid of someone like Lark who tortures people for fun."  
  
"Yeah, those are good reasons. But do you want to? I don't want to force you into anything you don't want to do. But if it's something you want to do, we'll help you do it. Somehow." I sigh. "Is this a mission like Marcus's mission, where you're allowed to walk away? Can you fail?"  
  
"I think so."  
  
"Okay. That's... an option. If you decide not to take the risk. I guess. How do you kill Lark?"  
  
"I don't know. He didn't say. He doesn't know."  
  
"Cool. Okay. Great. We'll figure that out somehow."  
  
Jacob gets off the phone and comes over to us. "The doctor will be here in about an hour."  
  
I fill Jacob in on everything I just went over with Rune. She's looking anxious and distressed about something. Quiet, shifting her weight, like she's gearing up to say something heavy.  
  
I ask Jacob what I should say to the doctor to explain my situation.  
  
"She's a doctor who works with monster hunters," he says. "And you're the only cured vampire in the world that we know of. That's a bad combination. She'll have too many questions, or want to experiment on you to find out how to reproduce it."  
  
"And that's when she gets killed," I say. "I don't mean that as a threat. I mean the others will kill her. Uh, here's another vampire secret thing that doesn't leave this room: You can't turn anybody by accident. It's not like in the movies where someone's like, 'Oh no, a mysterious creature of the night bit me, now I thirst for blood.' No.  
  
"I don't wanna get into details, but there's like. A process. You gotta plan for it. Vampires can't just slip up and make more without meaning to. So anybody who is a vampire, got that way because they asked for it in the first place. They're not going to like anyone going around trying to cure them."  
  
Gears turn in Jacob's head. "Hmm."  
  
Luckily he can't ask any more questions, because Rune speaks up.  
  
"I need to tell you guys what happened to my family," she says.  
  
She pulls herself up like she's getting ready to bat at the World Series.  
  
"Basil disappeared when I was six. It was winter, and I woke up suddenly after a nightmare where I thought I heard screaming, and he was gone. We looked everywhere, my mom called the police, and we never found him. So they finally just... said he was dead. I felt like I failed as a big sister. I couldn't protect him." She speaks quietly. "Sometimes I still have nightmares about that scream."  
  
I just stand there, not knowing what to say, so I don't.  
  
"My dad disappeared three years later. We thought he was dead, and my mom married Nick." Rune says the name like poison. "Everything seemed fine at first, but then it all went to hell. He started yelling at me all the time, or spanking me when my mom wasn't around. When I tried to tell her, she didn't believe me. And then she started doing it too.  
  
"I don't know why he acted like he hated me so much. He'd call me names, wake me up in the middle of the night to shovel snow, treat me like a military grunt." Rune talks with gritted teeth, face red. "He put a lock on the outside of my door so I couldn't leave my room, then he took all my furniture and everything I owned. I had to hide my books in a hole in the wall so he couldn't take those too. He only let me out for chores, or so he could yell at me some more. And then he -- he started to beat me."  
  
The temperature of the room is going down the whole time. I look at Jacob, and he's glaring icy-cold, as angry at hearing all this as I am.  
  
"Then my mom started to drink, and she started to beat me too. She'd call me stupid and worthless, and tell me it was my fault Basil and Dad died, and --" Rune's voice breaks. "I just wanted things to go back to normal, I just wanted my family back and my mom to love me."  
  
She starts crying. If it were another day any time earlier, I wouldn't have touched her. But she reached out to hug me yesterday, so I figure I'm allowed now. I go right over and hug her. She hugs me back, still crying. Seeing her in this much pain is like a railroad spike through the gut. I want to kill who did this to her, more and more with every word.  
  
Jacob joins the hug. We just hold her as she cries and talks.  
  
"He barely let me eat. He threatened to kill me," Rune says. "When I tried to stand up for myself, he just got worse. Sometimes things were okay for a little while, they'd both be happy and get off my case, but it always ended and they just got worse and worse.  
  
"I started sneaking out, and I finally had some friends, but -- but then he caught me sneaking back in one day. He was drunk, and he started yelling, and he started to beat me, and I fought back, and he -- he tried to touch me. He started pulling my clothes off and -- So I grabbed my bat, and I hit him. And there was blood everywhere, and I just ran, I didn't look back, I didn't check if he was still alive, I just ran and ran."  
  
There's a knock on the motel room door. Jacob goes to answer it. I keep a hold of Rune for a moment, wishing there was anything I could do or say to make it better.  
  
"You didn't deserve any of that," I say.  
  
"I know," Rune says, quietly. "Nobody does."  
  
Jacob stops before opening the door. "We'll end him. I promise."  
  
He opens the door. Rune's already got her tears under control. She goes over to sit in the chair across the room. I go over to greet the doctor.  
  
The doctor is an older woman, with big white hair, horn-rimmed glasses, loads of jewelry, and tons of makeup. I look her over, give a nod. I gotta admire anyone with bold style.  
  
"Hey, I'm Van," I say.  
  
"Doctor Luna Rose," she says. "Are you the patient?"  
  
"That's me."  
  
"I was told it was an emergency. You look fine."  
  
"It's a weird situation. I'm, uh. I was caught in a time bubble for thirty years. I need to make sure I'm all up on my immunizations," I say. "I also -- Let's just say I used to be really, really sick, and I need to find out if I still am."  
  
She does the usual. First check-up for me in decades. Height, weight, blood pressure, blood drawing, everything she can test or take with what she's got in her big bag. She gives me few shots in each arm, inoculations I've never had.  
  
"I can tell you the blood test results tomorrow," she says, "but for now, I can say you seem perfectly healthy. Other than being a little underweight."  
  
"I'm working on it."  
  
"Good." She gets up to go. "Have a good evening, everyone."  
  
"Thanks, Doc."  
  
She leaves, and I feel a little dazed and weird.  
  
"Yeah, she's a little much with her fashion sense, isn't she?" Jacob says.  
  
"What? No, no. Just... I've never, in my whole life, had anyone tell me I was healthy."


	9. Metal Bars

  
Everything hurts. Bones hurt, blood hurts, scars hurt. Earthtone room, smudged and shifting. Covers piled up on me. Trying to escape pain through heat. Can't sleep. Tossing and turning, keep realizing I forgot something.  
  
I sit up, try to figure out the pills, spilling orange bottles outta my bony arms, can't read the labels 'cause the numbers keep changing. "Grandpa?"  
  
He's kinda there in the kinda room. "Vanessa?"  
  
"I need help." I keep trying to get a blood sample, keep missing and hitting the knuckle-bone. Finally get some blood and I forget the hand and smear it on the sheet when I'm looking for the test strips in the quilt. "It's getting everywhere."  
  
He's next to the bed, taking my arm, needle goes in.  
  
"Put on the album," I say.  
  
Needle goes on the record. Vinyl pops and fuzzes. My my, at Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender, and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way...  
  
Grandpa’s gone and Marcus is standing over me. His hands glow with golden light that stings my arms. I can’t pull away, can’t sit up.  
  
I scream for help, but only noiseless air comes out. Jacob and Rune are just on the other side of the wall, but nobody can hear me.  
  
Marcus starts to beat me, every punch like fire. I hit back as hard as I can, but it’s like hitting an air mattress, my fists just bounce off, he doesn’t feel pain. I grab his arm and bite it, his flesh comes off the bone like tofu, flavorless mush, no blood, no meat. When I blink, his arm is whole again.  
  
He keeps me pinned, screaming in my face, punching again and again. He just keeps hitting, and I’m healing just fast enough not to die, and –  
  
I wake up, breathing fast. I jolt up, don’t wanna fall back asleep. I rush into the bathroom, just for somewhere to sit with the light on where it won’t bother anyone.  
  
Great. Another reason I hate sleeping. Not only do I lose tons of time I could spend reading, or researching monsters, I gotta play nightmare roulette. I stay awake a while before going back to bed. Jacob’s still, or already, awake; he notices me, but doesn’t say anything.  
  
I fall asleep feeling vindicated that I got to swipe Marcus’s guitar when we made him walk to the bus stop. I don’t know how to play, but I’m gonna goddamn learn, just to spite his memory.  
  
Next morning, Dr. Rose calls. Test results all came back clean. I’m totally healthy. It’s hard to believe.  
  
Rune had another vision. Fate didn’t visit her directly this time. She says she just knows. The vision doesn’t make sense, though. She saw a girl about her age, talking to herself in three different voices, one that sounded like a normal teenage girl’s, two sounded like grown men’s. Rune says the vision ended with a warehouse in New York, burning to the ground.  
  
Ezekiel calls Jacob. Asks where we all were last night. Says a warehouse burned down. Shocking. Jacob says we were here all night. He hangs up and says Zeke wants us down there to help check things out.  
  
“Before we get into monster hunting,” I say, “I’d feel a lot safer if I had like, more weapons. Maybe some kind of body armor.”  
  
“I know some people. We can take care of all that,” Jacob says.  
  
“And, uh. Could you start teaching me magic?”  
  
His face lights up like Christmas came early, then smooths out again. “Yeah, sure. I don’t see why not.”  
  
We go around the city, hitting up his contacts for black market goods. I get more ammo for my handgun (bullets that aren’t silver, for once), and Jacob gets himself a gun too. We find a sniper rifle. Bingo. Gonna learn how to use that baby. Maybe I can kill shit without having to put myself in danger, now. I get a nice, concealable bulletproof vest.  
  
I already hit up CVS last night for basic human essentials. Don’t have to bug Jacob to help with that, luckily.  
  
We do have to hit up someone who can forge me a buncha new fake IDs in a hurry, on account of my eyes being brown again, not the pale yellow they were as a vampire.  
  
Speaking of vampires, that’s another thing I looked into last night. Figured I better be safe and find out where Uncle Chuck’s lurking by this point, since I already know he ditched Jersey after my last and only post-NYC visit home. I do a search for Charles Frances Hewitt. He keeps re-using names and pretends to keep being to be somebody’s grandfather or uncle or whatever, moves around enough nobody notices it’s just the same old guy.  
  
I find him. He’s hanging out with bankers and investors in New Mexico. Okay. I make a mental note to avoid the area.  
  
Once the shopping trip’s sorted, Jacob and I swing back to the hotel to suit up. I put some quick concealer over the bruise on my face. Gotta get used to bruising again, ugh.  
  
We get Rune and go to the warehouse. It’s in Manhattan. Zeke and Mike are already there, talking to the cops. We leave Rune in the car, go up, flash our fake FBI badges. Today, Jacob’s Garrett Smith, and I’m Jean Yıldırım.  
  
The cops give us the run-down: Place housed food, groceries, nothing special. Two casualties, unidentified. Foul play’s suspected, but they don’t wanna jump to conclusions yet.  
  
Jacob and I check out the bodies. One was definitely killed in the fire. Burnt to a crisp, then crushed under falling debris, can’t tell a thing about them. The other’s not burned at all, so must’ve died first, on account of their broken neck.  
  
Some guy in plainclothes comes up to look. White guy around my height, kinda shaggy brown hair, gray eyes, wearing a big rumpled coat.  
  
“You’re not a cop,” I say.  
  
“Bartholomew Fielding,” he says. “Private investigator.”  
  
“What can you tell us?”  
  
“This one appears to have freezer burn,” he says, pointing to the one with a snapped neck.  
  
He asks us for our names. We give our agent names. He narrows his eyes at us but doesn’t say anything.  
  
We go over to look at the blast center. Burns and shit, looks like a big explosion like you’d expect. There’s some yellow powder traces. Jacob says it’s sulfur.  
  
“Why would there be sulfur left behind which wasn’t burned away in the fire?” Fielding says.  
  
I text Jacob, “What do you think?”  
  
He types, “Demon,” shows it to me on his screen, and deletes it without sending it.  
  
“Dunno,” we tell Fielding.  
  
He mutters about it being too faint to be a calling-card, as he wanders off again. Jacob and I look around, take photos, can’t make any better headway, go outside. The cops stop us and ask to see our IDs again. We pull 'em out. Cops ask to take them. We ask why.  
  
“We just want to run these through the system,” the officer says. “It’s routine.”  
  
We ask why they didn’t do that when we first got here, then. Cop just tells us again to hand them over. We comply. Fielding gives up his too. The cop takes all three IDs to one of the cop cars, gets on the radio with someone. Jacob mutters, “This isn’t good.”  
  
No kidding. But there’s nothing to do about it.  
  
Things go from bad to worse. Rune’s not in the car anymore. She’s getting arrested, looks like. Not cuffed, though, but put in the back of a black-and-white anyway. Shit. Can’t do more than glance for a second, 'cause we’re not supposed to know her.  
  
Cop comes back and throws our two IDs at our feet. “These are fake. You want to tell us what you’re doing posing as federal agents?”  
  
Fielding’s isn’t fake, but then his badge isn’t real anyway. He takes his civvy ID and wanders off again. Zeke and Mike are vacating the scene without looking our direction.  
  
Jacob and I don’t say anything. We get cuffed, frisked (there go my gun and wallet), read our rights, thrown in a cop car. With each other, but not with Rune. Jacob’s car gets towed in the opposite direction. Shit. It’s full of weapons and all kinds of crazy crap we probably shouldn’t have.  
  
I’m freaking out on the inside, because I’ve never been arrested before, and impersonating a fed is probably a huge can of worms. Plus all the other shit we might get busted for. I just stay calm, whisper as quiet as possible to Jacob, “What’s the plan?”  
  
He whispers back, “My family has a lawyer who can take care of this.”  
  
We get down to the district. They uncuff me long enough to make me take off my brand-new bulletproof vest and hand it over. I get re-cuffed and hauled off to an interrogation room. Empty cold room, steel table, a chair on either side, one light overhead, one-way mirror on the wall. I wait for what feels like forever. I figure I’m last in line. Either way, no way to corroborate stories or anything. No way to find out what’s going on with Rune.  
  
Finally a guy shows up. Not a cop. A Fed, a real one. Great. He’s a tall, lean, blonde white guy. Introduces himself as Special Agent Atticus Tirabassi. Asks me who I really am.  
  
“Do I have to answer?” I say.  
  
“You should,” he says.  
  
“Am I, um, compelled to? What happens if I don’t?”  
  
“Nothing. But we should try to get this over with as quickly as possible. Now, what’s your name?”  
  
I think about giving another fake name, but Jacob won’t know what it is, so I say, “Van.”  
  
“Is that short for anything?”  
  
Another mental debate. Doesn’t really matter. “Vanessa. But I prefer Van.”  
  
“Alright, Van. Do you have a last name?”  
  
“Um – I… don’t want to say.”  
  
“I’m getting really tired of all of you not wanting to tell me your names. The man won’t, the girl won’t either.”  
  
“What girl?” I say.  
  
“The girl who rode in your car,” he says.  
  
“I don’t own a car.”  
  
“Your friend’s car, then. Who is she?”  
  
“Good question.”  
  
He sighs. “Alright. Let’s cut to the chase. Why were you two impersonating FBI agents?”  
  
“Figured the cops wouldn’t let us in if we were just normal civilians,” I say.  
  
“And why did you want onto the crime scene? What were you doing there?”  
  
“Investigating.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“To figure out what happened.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because we didn’t know what happened.”  
  
He sighs loudly. “Uh-huh. Okay. Is this something you normally do? Go onto crime scenes and investigate crimes you shouldn’t be involved in?”  
  
I shrug. He looks and sounds exasperated with me.  
  
“What do you normally do, Van?”  
  
“Travel around.”  
  
“What kind of traveling around?”  
  
“Road trips.”  
  
“And where have you taken these road trips before you came to New York?”  
  
“Tourist trap places. Mall of America. Cadillac Ranch. Stuff like that.”  
  
“And where are you from originally?”  
  
“Jersey.”  
  
“Just Jersey? Any particular part of Jersey?”  
  
“South.”  
  
“South,” he repeats.  
  
I sigh. “Salem.”  
  
“Alright. So you and your accomplice…” he says.  
  
“I prefer not to use that word,” I say.  
  
“But that is what he is.”  
  
“That’s more like, your word for him, not mine. You can think of him any way you want to, I guess. But I wouldn’t call him an accomplice.”  
  
“Alright. Your friend,” Tirabassi says. “You’ve been traveling around on a road trip for some amount of time, hitting up tourist traps, and suddenly decided out of nowhere you would just buy some bulletproof armor, handguns, fake IDs and badges, and impersonate two federal agents to infiltrate and investigate a murder scene, for fun?”  
  
“Mm… Shouldn’t I get a phone call by now?”  
  
“I’d really prefer to wrap up our little conversation.”  
  
“I think I need a lawyer.”  
  
“You’ll get your phone call. Care to answer a few more questions first?”  
  
“Not really. Can I talk to the other guy?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Okay. Do I just get the one phone call? What if the person I call doesn’t answer?”  
  
“Well then, you better make sure you call someone who will.”  
  
\---  
  
Before Agent Tirabassi leaves, I ask, “So, you got any theories about the case?”  
  
“It’s been less than a day. The police are still working on it,” he says. “I’m not actually involved in the investigation. I’m only here on account of you two. Why, do you have a theory you’d like to share?”  
  
“Sure, but you won’t believe me.”  
  
“Try me.”  
  
“Okay, but I mean, it’s pretty stupid. So you have a regular fire explosion, and some sort of ice explosion, so the bodies are burned and freezer-burned.”  
  
“An ice explosion. That isn’t a thing.”  
  
“Sure it is. It’s when ice explodes.”  
  
“No, that’s just called a regular explosion.”  
  
“What if you put a grenade in an ice sculpture? Like one of those giant ice swans. And then you blew it up. Boom. Ice-splosion.”  
  
He rubs his head. “No, that would still be an incendiary explosion. At best, you would have chunks of ice flying everywhere. At worst, they would melt.”  
  
“Okay, so maybe something like, a dry ice explosion. I don’t know, okay? Anyway, one body’s burned, the other is ice-burned, so whatever. Then there’s sulfur on the scene, that didn’t get burned up. So, if we’re throwing stupid darts at the crazy board, I would say it’s a demon. But we both know that’s not true.”  
  
Tirabassi looks at me like I told him a talking horse beat him out for valedictorian. “A demon. Alright. So you’re insane.”  
  
“Hey. I said it was a stupid theory, not a good one. I’m not the one in this room who went to cop school.”  
  
“Cop school. You mean police academy and special agent training?”  
  
“Exactly. Besides, it’s not like the actual cops have any other guesses yet.”  
  
“Alright. Well, I’ll be talking to you again soon. I’ll make sure you get that phone call, Vanessa.”  
  
“Whatever you say, Tiramisu.”  
  
“You’re not the first person to make that joke.”  
  
“‘Kay.”  
  
“That’s right, you prefer Van, don’t you? My apologies.” And he’s gone.  
  
I review my options, which aren’t a lot.  
  
I don’t know who Jacob’s lawyer is. I can’t call them, I can’t talk to him, I don’t even know if they’re allowed to represent both of us simultaneously. I can try to call his family and hope they help out.  
  
I have another option in my head. Someone else who’s good at greasing wheels and palms. Someone who might actually be interested in keeping me alive – for selfish reasons, but better than nothing.  
  
I could try to call Uncle Chuck.  
  
I think about it while I’m in the empty room, waiting for Agent Tirabassi or whoever to take me to the phone.  
  
Thing is, bringing Chuck into things would just snowball into lots more problems I don’t want to deal with. Yeah, he might help, because I’m human and healthy now. Except he’d probably want me on a proverbial leash to keep nearby as a handy snack, at best. At worst, he’d just kill me and my friends for knowing too much.  
  
Even if the Bakers can’t lend me their lawyer, maybe they can set me up with another one. So when I finally get to use the phone, I call Whitney Baker, tell her what’s up. She says Jacob explained, and their family lawyer will represent me too. Cool.  
  
The lawyer shows up eventually. She’s a babe. Lillith Reuben, pantsuit, blonde hair in a tight bun, leggy and hot. I’ll call it a silver lining that I get some eye candy during this whole ordeal.  
  
She asks me what I told the cops already. I tell her what I said. She says that if things go real south, I can just plead insanity.  
  
“So instead of jail, they would lock me up in a mental health facility, like, indefinitely. Yeah, no. I don’t like that.”  
  
“Then stop talking without a lawyer. If they try to talk to you again, don’t say anything. Just ask for me. Okay? Let me do all the talking from now on, and this will go a lot easier.”  
  
“How is this going to go? Are we going on trial? Or are you just going to bribe some people?”  
  
“Sh-sh-shhh, no, zip it, don’t say that.” She looks exasperated at me. “I’m going to do my job, which I am very good at, and have been doing for some time now for the Baker family. And you and Jacob will be out of here shortly. They can’t hold you for more than a few days if I get the charges dropped. Just sit tight, and don’t talk to anyone.”  
  
I spend my first night ever in jail. Great way to start off being human. I get a crappy little cold bed in a cement room. I use my overcoat as a blanket and fold up my scarf for a pillow. I’m worried about Jacob and especially about Rune. She doesn’t know about our lawyer, and she might get busted as a missing child, and then suddenly we’re kidnappers. Not to mention if she actually killed that shitbag stepfather – Ugh. Too many things to think about. Can’t get all riled up going down what-ifs in my brain.  
  
I get pulled back into interrogation the next day. Tirabassi wants another chat.  
  
“I reviewed some items from your wallet,” he says. “One in particular was especially interesting.”  
  
Ah, crap.  
  
“There was a driver’s license for a Vanessa Renard from Salem, New Jersey. Looks just like you. I ran the number. I figured it was a fake like the other. But no, to my surprise, that one’s legitimate,” he says. “Except it was issued in 1978.”  
  
“Um.”  
  
“Care to explain?”  
  
“Umm.”  
  
“Because I’m trying to reconcile this. You’re obviously not fifty-five. Yet you’re also obviously the person this license was issued to.”  
  
I ask for my lawyer. He gets Reuben down here in a hurry. Doesn’t care about making me sweat this time, he just wants answers as soon as possible.  
  
Reuben shows up. I tell her what he found. I add, quietly, just for her, “There’s also a photo of my parents in there. A copy of a newspaper article announcing their marriage. Their, uh – I used their names for my fake agent name.”  
  
Eugene Renard and Aisha Yıldırım. Married in 1960 in Salem, New Jersey (one of the only states back then to allow it). Only picture I have of 'em. Got it on that last visit home, after New York – had to hit up the old newspapers in the archives to find the spot about the wedding. Photocopied, laminated, had it ever since. My old license, I just kept that 'cause it’s the only photo I had left of being human. Guess that’s a moot point now.  
  
Didn’t think the feds would look through my wallet. I don’t have a story for this. I ask Reuben what I should do. Should I just 'fess up to being the real me? She says no, because it sounds crazy even if it’s true. The less I say, the better.  
  
Tirabassi goes on. “I looked around for what I could find about the old Vanessa Renard. Pretty bad health. Reported missing, presumed dead.”  
  
Man, what the hell? It’s not like I ditched town right after Chuck sired me. I stuck around a little to learn the ropes before he gave me a Greyhound ticket to NYC. I had no job and no family, so who’d even report me 'missing’? Chuck doing it wouldn’t make sense, 'cause that’d just make him look suspicious for no good reason. Sure, Salem’s a small town, but a fully-grown adult moving away isn’t cause to file a missing persons report.  
  
I lean over to mutter to Reuben, “I don’t know who reported that. I was dying of kidney failure, yeah, but like, I got 'better’ before I left town, so I don’t know what’s going on with this. Ugh, I bet it was Otto.”  
  
Otto Melville. Stupid name for that boy I dated in high school. Maybe he was still mooning over me after graduation. Who knows.  
  
I say to Tirabassi, “There are lots of Vanessa Renards, I bet.”  
  
“Yes, but none of them look exactly like you.”  
  
“How do you know that’s not, uh, a keepsake from my mother?”  
  
I know it’s a stupid question as I say it, because that damn wedding photo’s in there, and if he looked at the records he already knows that’s legitimate too.  
  
“What is going on?” he presses.  
  
“Well, um. You tell me. What’s your theory?”  
  
He runs a hand through his hair, looks unhappy. Disgruntled. “They’re all crazy.”  
  
“I’m curious. Try me,” I say.  
  
“Honestly, the best I can come up with is something like time travel. Which is crazy. Like you telling me a demon blew up the warehouse. I can’t put that in my report. But nothing here makes sense.”  
  
Now I don’t feel bad for guessing 'time travel’ for half of every mystery I come across either.  
  
“Just – off the record,” he says. “Tell me the truth.”  
  
“My lawyer says not to tell you anything.”  
  
He looks desperate, but not angry. The curiosity’s eating him up inside. He leans forward. “I need to know.”  
  
“Maybe someday.”  
  
He sighs and stands. “I’ll figure this out. However this case goes, I’m going to find out the explanation for all this.”  
  
“Good luck with that.”  
  
Tirabassi leaves.  
  
I say to Reuben, “If they go through my phone, there’s… It’ll be worse. I hope they can’t crack my password.”  
  
All those photos of murdered corpses across the country, taken inside morgues I wasn’t legally supposed to be in. Yeah, that’s bad.  
  
“They need a warrant to access your phone. They can’t compel you to unlock it for them,” she says.  
  
“What about the car?”  
  
Just in my stuff alone, there’s now a sniper rifle, a thermos that might still have traces of blood in it, some medication I stole from a dead guy’s house (thank god it’s OTC and not prescription, so his name isn’t on it), a ton of wooden stakes and no tent, way too much propellant for someone without a barbecue, and a collection of sexual paraphernalia, which probably isn’t illegal but it’d be embarrassing as fuck. Literally.  
  
“It’s been impounded,” she says. “They’ll need a warrant to search it too.”  
  
“Okay. Cool.”  
  
Reuben gets up to go.  
  
“Hey, um,” I say, “I was wondering…”  
  
“Yes?” she says.  
  
“Well uh, I don’t know if it’s like, legal for me to ask you –”  
  
“Then don’t. If you have to ask if it’s even legal, assume it’s not and don’t ask whatever it is. Wait a few days until I’m not you’re lawyer anymore.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
I don’t have anything to do but wait. I spend a couple more days in jail. Finally get released. I get everything back except the gun. No surprises there.  
  
First thing I do is text Rune. I tell her we’re free, ask if she’s okay. She says she’s fine. She got let go right away, found Zeke and Mike, been hanging out with them the whole time. Whew.  
  
I meet up with Jacob and Reuben outside the station. Jacob looks fine too. So we’re all fine. Good.  
  
I turn to Reuben. “Hey, now that I’m out –”  
  
“Before you continue, let me make it clear that as of right now, I am no longer your lawyer,” she says. “You may proceed.”  
  
“Cool. Are you doing anything later?”  
  
“No. Why?”  
  
“Wanna be?”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
I almost say, 'me’. Instead I say, “I dunno. Dancing, dinner, drinks I guess, and see where that, uh, leads us?” I feel my face get hot. Oh god, I can blush again. Not even sunglasses can save me now.  
  
“I’m not much of a dancer,” she says.  
  
“Dinner then?”  
  
She smiles. “Dinner sounds great.”  
  
"Groovy."  
  
She laughs. "You really are from the 70s, aren't you."  
  
I name a time and place. She heads off. I turn back to Jacob, grinning like an idiot. “Okay, this week wasn’t all bad.”  
  
“God, you are so awkward. It’s adorable.”  
  
We get his car back, buy ourselves some new handguns, and meet up with Rune, Zeke, and Mike. We swap intel, which is to say, we give them our intel and they have nothing to share. Oh well.  
  
Jacob does some scrying to find out where this demon might strike next. He gets a vision of an abandoned church. Abandoned, but full of people going inside, and nobody’s coming back out.  
  
“We have to take care of this demon today,” Jacob says.  
  
“Ugh, tonight? Does it have to be today?” I say.  
  
“Yes, or a lot of people are going to die.”  
  
“Fiiine.”  
  
I text Reuben (I should start thinking of her as Lillith now), “Something suddenly came up. I don’t know if I can do dinner tonight. Can we reschedule for tomorrow night instead?”  
  
She texts back, “How about you just come over to my place for the weekend?”  
  
I reply with a thumbs-up emoji.  
  
Our trio and the dude duo zip over to the church. Another car arrives at the same time. Investigator Fielding gets out. We make ten seconds of small talk before telling him to either get out of our way or prepare for combat. He takes the news about a demon in stride, and comes along with us.  
  
We go into this old church. The pews are full up with people, all sitting like stones, staring ahead with all-black eyes. There’s a teenage girl on the stage, rocking out on an electric guitar. No amps or speakers, but the music’s coming out crazy, painfully loud anyway. We all wrap scarves over our ears, or put in ear buds or ear plugs.  
  
The girl and the people don’t notice us walk up the aisle. I wave and yell, “HEY!” No response. I fire once into the ceiling. Still nada.  
  
Finally she stops playing, looks at us, says hello. It’s not a girl speaking. Sounds like a grown man. Aggressive, harsh voice. We ask who it is.  
  
“McKayla Sharpe.”  
  
Not this again. We ask who the demon is, not the host.  
  
“Well. I can’t really just give you my name. You know that, right?” it says.  
  
“You got a nickname? Something we can at least refer to you as?” I ask.  
  
“Sure. You can call me 'Riffs’. As in, sick riffs.”  
  
“Yeah. You’re pretty good.”  
  
Jacob and I are walking straight down the aisle toward it. Rune goes around the side onto the stage. Bart hangs back. Zeke and Mike hang way back, watching the exits.  
  
Jacob whips out a water pistol, full of holy water, shooting it and magically freezing it around Riffs right as Rune lunges and swings her bat. The demon freezes, then the next second un-freezes as she shatters the ice. Jacob starts chanting an exorcism. Riffs starts wailing on the guitar again. The hypnotized people in the pews bleed from their ears, and several jump up and start to attack.  
  
I jump in the way and fend them off Jacob, drawing them away so he can keep chanting, and pretty soon I’m covered like they’re a zombie horde. They can’t do much but bruise me up a little though, 'cause I’ve got the body armor, and even without being a vampire, I’m still good at fighting.  
  
I wrestle my way outta their grip and trade the handgun for my own water pistol, also full of holy water. I spritz and backpedal, luring them away from Jacob. Holy water hisses and steams on 'em, but I don’t hurt 'em otherwise. They’re still regular innocent people in there, we just gotta free them from demonic control, not kill them.  
  
Bart jumps into the fray, pulls his gun and shoots the guitar. The music stops. More of the mind-controlled people jump him. He gets K.O.’d, bleeding out on the floor.  
  
Jacob finishes the exorcism. There’s a rush of smoke as Riffs is expelled. McKayla stands there, and then says, in a different voice of a different man, “Now you’ve done it.”  
  
Well shit! Didn’t know a double-possession was possible.  
  
The demon, whoever it is this time, raises a foot, about to stomp. I remember the blast marks in the warehouse, know what’s coming next, can’t let all the innocents still sitting in the front pews get ice-sploded to death. I rush the stage, Jacob flings up a wall of ice with just one narrow channel for me to spring up and tackle the demon. There’s a huge blast of ice in all directions, most of those directions being directly against my body. It’s like I take a grenade to the stomach, if the grenade was a whole avalanche off Mt. Everest.  
  
I flip the demon over and use all my strength (which isn’t much) and weight (which is even less) to keep McKayla’s body pinned face-down, while Jacob chants another exorcism.  
  
There’s another whoosh as the second demon leaves her body. She’s left dazed, but alive. She groans in her own voice now. Smoke and ash rush out of the people in the pews. A few didn’t survive the ice blast, but most did.  
  
I jump down and run over to the investigator, pull out some gauze and med kit shit. I’ve always had some know-how about that, 'cause when you’re sick and get hurt all the time you need to know how to patch yourself up. Just hadn’t done it in ages, for myself or anyone else, 'cause blood made it too tough to concentrate. Anyway, I stabilize Fielding in a hurry. He comes to.  
  
Sirens in the distance. Time to go. Zeke and Mike take off in their own car. We tell Fielding to follow us, gotta reconvene someplace, figure out what each other knows about all this.  
  
Not bad for my first fight as a human. Surviving until the weekend is a bonus.  
  
Something weird about the whole thing, weirder than the usual weirdness. Can’t tell if it’s just some jet-lag about getting used to mortality again or what. I could’ve sworn I was getting hit harder than I was. Not just the armor, but like, everything that hit me should’ve put me in the E.R. by now, I’m pretty positive, right? But something about it all just turned everything into a glancing blow. Yeah, a glancing blow from like five dudes swinging at once. Glancing blow from absorbing an explosion that previously leveled half a warehouse.  
  
I get the weirdest feeling it’s not 'cause of my own innate toughness or anything like that. No lingering vampire strength. I feel like it came from Rune. Like every time I would’ve got my spine snapped, Fate went, “Nope,” on her behalf. Tugged a string just enough. Like she’s unconsciously bestowing her battlefield blessings on us now, just by being there.  
  
I dunno. Maybe it’s another stupid theory in the crazy dartboard.


	10. Splitting the Billings

  
We just exorcised two demons for the price of one. Jacob, Rune, and I head back at the motel, with Bart the P.I. guy following in his own car to reconnoiter with us.  
  
We lay it out for him: Magic's real. Monsters are real. Welcome to being in-the-know.  
  
He's shocked but had his suspicions already. He ended up in New York after following leads from a case over in Michigan. A certain Everett Noble's smeared remains on the street, with a peculiar pair of puncture marks on his throat. Oops. I usually remember to hide those.  
  
Jacob confirms it was a vampire. "The vampire has been dealt with."  
  
"You killed it?" Bart asks.  
  
"It's been dealt with."  
  
Bart squints at us like when we told him our fake names. "How do you make a living off monster hunting, anyway?"  
  
"Well... you don't," Jacob says. "I have funds from other sources, and I support these two."  
  
"So you're their sugar daddy?"  
  
All three of us cringe and gag at the same time. And I thought I asked awkward questions.  
  
"That's -- no. No. Ew. None of us -- No," I say.  
  
"Then what is he?" Bart says.  
  
"He's our friend," Rune says.  
  
"It's not a sex thing. Like at all," I say. "He gives us an allowance."  
  
"There's a word for that," Bart says. "He's your patron."  
  
"He's our friend!" Rune says.  
  
Jacob says, "Besides, a sugar daddy implies that they provide some benefit to me in return, but when was the last time you two were useful?"  
  
Rune and I look at Jacob, stung, surprised. "What?"  
  
"I'm kidding," he says.  
  
"Oh." I shrug. "Okay."  
  
Rune still looks hurt. She goes quiet.  
  
"Anyway, you wanna be a monster hunter?" I ask Bart.  
  
Jacob says, grimly, "You should be aware that this is not an easy life. Being a monster hunter is dark and nightmarish. You won't likely live to die of old age."  
  
"Psh, you get to be a badass dragon-slayer and pick up hot chicks," I say.  
  
"Are we sure we should have killed that dragon, though? Was that the right decision?"  
  
"You mean killing the dragon before it killed the whole town? Yeah? Why, do you have some reason to think we shouldn't have?"  
  
"I think that's a discussion we should have another time."  
  
"Whatever. Trying to take the wind outta my sails," I mutter. "Okay. Bartholomew. Before you agree. How do you feel about boats?"  
  
Bart gives me a weird look. "In what sense?"  
  
"Like being on them. Hypothetically. Being on a big cruise ship. Which may or may not... be in danger of sinking... for some mysterious reason."  
  
"I don't mind the first part, but I am less enthused about the second part."  
  
"It's what we're trying to stop, so the sinking part will hopefully, uh, not happen," I say. "Second question. How do you feel about, um. Montana. Just in general. As a place. And being there. No reason."  
  
He squints at me. "What part of Montana, and why? There's obviously a reason."  
  
"...One moment."  
  
I pull Jacob and Rune away to huddle quietly. "Okay, fighting monsters is one thing, but he's not going to be happy about what we're doing in Billings. Probably."  
  
Jacob says, "That's still hunting monsters."  
  
"Yeah, we know that, but what if he doesn't see it that way?" I say.  
  
Rune says, "You don't have to do this. It was different before, when you were a vampire. You needed to feed. That's why I said, 'if you were hungry'. Now you're human, and you're... You could get hurt."  
  
"Well. I know. But I have like, guns and a bullet-proof vest, and you and Jacob, and he's gonna teach me magic. It's fine."  
  
"It's not a sure thing though. I don't want you guys getting hurt on account of me."  
  
"Rune, it's fine. It's what a -- um, a -- you know, it's..."  
  
Jacob looks at me. "Use your words."  
  
"It's what a p-- uh... a person is supposed to do, they're supposed to, uh, be willing to sacrifice themselves for their, um, the people that they care about," I stammer out. "You know."  
  
Rune looks down. "You still don't have to if you don't want to."  
  
"I mean. I sorta want to? Like, even if I don't need to drink Nick's blood, he's still awful and shouldn't be alive anymore," I say. "Are you saying this because you don't want us to? It's up to you. If you say no, we won't do it."  
  
"I... want him dead."  
  
Bart calls over to us, "Hey, are you done having your parent-teacher conference over there?"  
  
We break up the huddle awkwardly. Rune shuffles her feet and looks down again. I get kind of a fuzzy feelin' in my heart, just having someone call us that. Stupid.  
  
Bart decides to join us after all. We don't tell him what's up in Billings. For his sake, we might have him just sit out in the car with the engine running, ready to be a getaway driver with at least a little plausible deniability. Rune says if we're gonna do this, we gotta do it right away, while we have a chance. Who knows what'll happen on the cruise.  
  
Bart says he wants to stop in Detroit to drop off his car, to save on gas money, if we're all traveling together anyway.  
  
"Okay, but," I say, "you have to know that we control the radio. Do you have good taste in music?"  
  
"Of course I have good taste in music," he scoffs. "What kind of a question is that?"  
  
"What you think is good taste might not be what we do."  
  
"I like jazz, and --"  
  
"Nope. It's pop and showtunes in this car."  
  
Bart groans.  
  
Before we leave, Jacob drives us to his parents' house first. It's a swanky nice place. As soon as we walk in, an unfamiliar male voice says, "Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to show up."  
  
An elegant, fluffy white cat with blue eyes struts in from the other room. It's got a regular cat face, not the squashed face kind of fluffy cat. "You said you'd be right back. You left me alone for days, you liar."  
  
Rune gets down to pet the cat.  
  
"What the fuck is that?" Bart says.  
  
"His name is Lucian," Rune says.  
  
"My familiar," Jacob says. He looks at the cat. "And I wasn't gone by choice. I was in jail."  
  
"Excuses," Lucian scoffs.  
  
I sit next to Rune. Lucian allows me to pet him. He's super soft.  
  
"The cat talks," Bart says. "This is weird. I don't like this. I need a smoke."  
  
Jacob says, "Do not smoke in here, or my mom will kill me."  
  
I look up at Bart before he leaves. "You smoke? Okay, well, none of that in the car either."  
  
"Yeah, keep that shit outside," Rune says.  
  
I don't say I just wanna keep my lungs as intact as possible for as long as I can, now that I have to deal with breathing again.  
  
Eventually we head back to the cars. Lucian's coming with us now. We leave New York City without any further ado. We tell Bart we got a special mission up there, and the less he knows the better.  
  
We don't do the usual sight-seeing or diner stops that Rune usually asked for in the past. All my spare time's spent learning new shit. Jacob lectures me and Rune on magic, I start trying to practice. His magic's water and ice, hers is lightning, but nobody knows what kind I'll get. Turns out magic is personal, unique for how it manifests in each person.  
  
I practice shooting with the sniper rifle, whenever there's a chance to shoot faraway targets in a big field or something. Figuring out how to use a scope, compensate for bullet drop over a distance, things like that. Different than just using a regular handgun.  
  
I do some research on my phone. First thing is to try to find out who reported me as a missing person back home. Looks like I was left as a cold case, but nothing I can find says who reported it. Doesn't make sense. Cops would've asked my grandparents first, and they would've said I moved to New York. I guess when the cops couldn't find me there, they just gave up and said, 'who knows'.  
  
Next I look up Silas Vallens, just in case he's been spotted anywhere after all. Nope on that front.  
  
Next is Nick Smith. I ask Rune if he does anything other than be a huge dick. She says no. He's an unemployed bum mooching off her mom. Every so often he gets a job, but he doesn't last long before getting fired. Any of his spare time he spends getting drunk or going out hunting with his friends.  
  
I look up her mom next. Bethany Smith doesn't get any hits in Billings. I try Bethany Vallens. She never married Nick, never changed her name after Silas either. She's working at some hair salon. Good. She's got work hours and Nick doesn't. Maybe we can catch him alone.  
  
Just in case we can't, I ask Rune what she wants us to do if her mom gets in the way. Should Beth be spared, or what? Rune says she doesn't care. Her mom's just as bad for letting Nick get away with everything he did. I say okay.  
  
We roll into town. Rune starts giving weird looks and frowns at random people.  
  
"Did you guys see that?" she says.  
  
"See what?" we ask.  
  
"That guy. He was blue. And he had horns."  
  
I look back. I don't see any blue guy. The others don't either. Jacob turns the car around, we drive back to the spot and park. There's a perfectly normal dude just standing around at a strip mall. Jacob does some kind of magic sight thing, says he can't see anything special that way either.  
  
We keep driving. Nobody else seems to pay any attention to us either. Rune says there are other weird, inhuman-looking people around. Great. We pull up to the corner of her cul-de-sac. Her house is up at the far end.  
  
There's a woman walking around, keeps making loops, over and over again. Rune says the woman's one of them. Frost-covered skin, keeps shivering. Doesn't notice us yet.  
  
Jacob rolls down his window and calls out when the woman passes by. "Excuse me, we're a little lost. Can you tell us where the nearest hotel is?" he asks. The woman points, gives us directions, keeps walking.  
  
I get my rifle scope and use it like a spyglass to peep into Rune's house. There's a man and a woman, hanging out in the living room. The guy looks like a greasy slob with greasy brown hair. The woman has a big head of frizzy black hair.  
  
"They're both home. Big picture window. I could probably get 'em with the sniper rifle. Or at least one, before the other one hits the deck," I say. "Unless we wanna sneak in and take 'em out in their sleep or something. Rune, do you know any other ways in?"  
  
"There's the hole in the wall that I used to sneak out and escape before," she says. "But that might not be there anymore."  
  
"We could always try to kick the door in like usual. But we don't wanna draw attention. Cops or... whatever these other people are around here."  
  
"We could blow the place up," Jacob says. "Just set it on fire and make it look like an accident."  
  
"No!" Rune says. "My dad's stuff is in there. He might have more information about the Broker. And everything else. It might help us get him and Basil back. And... that's still my house. Maybe I still want it someday. I don't know."  
  
"Alright, hold on," Bart says. "Would someone like to tell me what's going on here? We are going after monsters, right? That's what you people do?"  
  
We all look at each other. Jacob says, "Yes."  
  
I get a weird thought. Just a feeling. "Hey. Rune. Tell me what you see." I hand her the scope.  
  
She looks through it, and looks shocked by what she sees. "My mom... She's... not my mom anymore."  
  
Thought so.  
  
"She's not human," Rune says. "She has this round mouth full of sharp teeth, and black eyes, and her head is all... red. Bright, blood red. I think she's a redcap."  
  
We ask if she looked like that before. Rune says no. We speculate if her trip in Fairyland gave her special new sight. She says she doesn't know.  
  
"I think that thing ate my mom and replaced her," Rune says quietly. "My real mom's already dead."  
  
I wonder if that was before or after Nick came into the picture, but I don't say it. Doesn't matter now anyway. "What about him?"  
  
"Still human."  
  
"Debatable," Jacob mutters.  
  
"Now hold on again," Bart says. "Killing a monster I can understand. Are you trying to tell me you're also planning on killing a human?"  
  
Everyone goes quiet. Finally I say, "Let's just say, he deserves to die too, and that's all you need to know."  
  
Bart's still uncomfortable, but whatever. We go to the next town over to buy cold iron ammo, 'cause of course we can't get cold iron anything in Billings when it's overrun by fey. Jacob enchants all our weapons. We get back to Billings. Rune pulls her hood up.  
  
I go across the street from the cul-de-sac to find a good sniping perch. There's a sturdy tree set back a ways, outta view from the street, still got enough leaves to hide me in it. I climb up, find a branch wide enough to set the rifle on while I'm stretched out on my stomach, feet propped against the bough.  
  
Shiver Chick is still walking circles. Nick and Bethcap are still in the living room. Rune sneaks off and makes a wide circle around the back with her bat. It's cold iron, too.  
  
I feel nervous for a second. What if I fuck this up? I might miss, tip them off, suddenly we have an angry powerful monster coming at us while we're all split up like this. Or something spots me, sneaks up on me. Or the cops -- No! Gotta keep cool. Just get her in the cross-hairs. Remember everything I've been practicing. Pull the trigger.  
  
Bethcap goes to the kitchen. I watch her path. She walks back. I fire.  
  
Her head basically explodes. A fuckin' bullseye right in her face, and the bullet's magic, and made of what fey are weak to. Nick jumps up, yelling. The front window's shattered. Shiver Lady stops, watching from the sidewalk a few houses away.  
  
Rune runs in from the back somewhere and beats the living shit out of Bethcap, who didn't die from losing most of her head, she just kept running and flailing. Rune puts a stop to that. She's splattered with blood now. Points the gory bat at Nick, says something, he sits down again, looking terrified. I get him in my sights, ready to take him out next, but Rune's still talking to him.  
  
I text the group to let 'em know about Shiver Lady keeping watch. I say we oughta hurry in case backup arrives.  
  
Bart and Jacob go into the house one by one. Jacob freezes Nick from the neck down in a big block of ice. So, what, are we takin' hostages now?  
  
Shiver Lady turns and suddenly walks into the closest house. I can't see her anywhere through those windows. I see a family, sitting there watching TV. They don't notice her, wherever she is. I text the group about this. Jacob walks toward the house. Rune says something to Bart and leaves him guarding Nick while she searches the house.  
  
I keep checking the area every so often, and watching my back, just in case. I'm tense, thinking we'll get busted any second now, and lose the chance to take out Nick.  
  
Jacob gets to the other house, knocks on the door. A family member answers. He asks them something, and suddenly Lucian jumps out of a bush and runs over to him. He picks up the cat, says something else to the family, and leaves again.  
  
We exchange more texts. We think the Shiver Lady didn't go inside. Just used the door as a gate to teleport someplace else when she wasn't visible anymore. That's not better. Family's safe, but now these damn fairies might pop outta anyplace by surprise. And only Rune knows which ones are which.  
  
I'm still antsy. Rune's still outta sight. All of us in separate places. One potential enemy unaccounted for. If anybody had anything to say to Nick, they probably said it by now. Gotta take the shot.  
  
Bang. Second head-shot today. Bart freaks out about it. Whatever.  
  
They unload stuff from the house into the car. Jacob and Bart go off into the woods out back to burn the bodies. I watch smoke rise outta the trees. The street stays quiet. Rune comes over to my tree and sits under it.  
  
"Hey," I say.  
  
"Hey," she says. She's quiet for a while, texting on her phone. Then she quietly says, "We really did it. They're really gone now."  
  
"How are you feeling?"  
  
"I... I don't know."  
  
"Yeah. Might take a while."  
  
\---  
  
We found some neat stuff in the basement. Silas's old stuff. A whole trunk full of monster hunting weapons. A lone candle, which is probably important. Rune remembers there were blank pages in the journal. Says maybe something's written with invisible ink, and the candle can reveal it.  
  
We call up Zeke and Mike. Ask 'em if they still have the original journal. They say yes. We ask if we can have it -- not a copy. They say sure, they have like a dozen copies made already.  
  
We drive down to Nebraska to pick up the real journal. It's three days down, three back up. It's October 16 now. We have a month left until the cruise.  
  
Rune flips to the blank page. It's page 312, specifically, I don't remember where she got that number from. It came from the stuff in the basement, I think?  
  
Anyway, yeah, it's not blank. The flame reveals that Billings, Montana is actually a fey crossing. No shit, dude. It's also got directions to reach the gate to the feylands.  
  
Rune tells us she had a vision about that gate. About her dad. An archway made of two trees, branches braided together. A blackwood gate. An empty area between them, another identical gate, and Silas, waiting at the door.  
  
We go back to Billings, into the woods out back. It's a crazy, complex path, having to take specific steps all around, going under specific branches, over certain roots, past certain creeks, between certain rocks. Can't just walk there, no. Fairies have to make everything a riddle. If you gave a vampire a secret door, they'd put a cement bunker around it and three more steel doors with fingerprint scanners and key codes.  
  
We find the door. Ta-da. There's a blue, horned guy standing guard. He's wearing armor and carrying an axe. He watches us but doesn't attack. Rune tells us that's a troll. She also says the gibberish carved into the archway says, "No One's Land".  
  
We cautiously approach the door. The troll draws his weapon. We draw our weapons. Nobody moves.  
  
"We don't want to fight you," Rune says. "We want to open the gate to let someone out."  
  
"Of course you do," the troll says. "That's why I'm here to guard it. If we just let anyone walk up and let people out, it'd be chaos. Why should I let you?"  
  
"I mean, we can just kill you, if you really want," I say. "But you probably don't want that."  
  
"I only let the worthy through," he says. "Are you asking for a trial by combat?"  
  
"No," Rune says. "We can prove our worth another way. As a show of good faith, we'll lower our weapons first."  
  
We do.  
  
Jacob speaks up, "Is there any other arrangement we can come to? Is there anything you want from us that we can offer in exchange for being allowed to open the gate?"  
  
The troll thinks about this. "Food. I want food. Bring me something to eat, and I'll think about it."  
  
We trek back to town. Doesn't take as long to leave as it does going back in. We buy him a whole meal from a fast food place. Burger, fries, drink, the works. I hope he's not vegan.  
  
We get back. Have to do the complex trek again, even though we could just walk straight out. Luckily the troll accepts the food. He says we can go through the door, but he warns us that any other deals with fey are all void inside No One's Land.  
  
We open the gate and walk over the short space to the other, identical gate. We open it, and a man falls out. He's been leaning on it. Rune helps him up. He's tall, blonde, blue-eyed, kinda chiseled but not beefy. Not bad looking, for a dude. I ask Rune if it's the right guy.  
  
"Yeah," she says, and punches him in the face.  
  
"Ow. I probably deserved that," he says.  
  
She turns around and stalks away. We follow her. The gates close.  
  
I look over Silas, sizing him up. He looks rough. Lots of cuts and bruises. He also looks young, way too young for a guy with a teenage daughter, unless he married Beth in middle school. We all introduce ourselves to him. Including Rune, because he calls her Lily at first. Well, at least he recognizes her.  
  
I'm trying not to get jealous or worried. Stupid. If Rune wants him to stay with us, what am I gonna say, no? If she wants to just leave and go move in with him, what am I gonna do, stop her? He's her dad. He's the real parent here.  
  
Whatever. I don't worry about that for now. I got questions. I ask him, quietly, while Rune's still ahead of us, "Did you know they'd take Basil?"  
  
"No! Of course not!" Silas says.  
  
I nod. "Okay."  
  
"I would never have signed that contract if I knew what it would mean."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"The Broker is a trickster. By the time I learned what the price would be, it was too late. I would never willingly sign away my own children, for any reason."  
  
"I said okay, dude. I believe you. You don't have to explain." I look at his limping feet. "Once we get someplace safe, I can patch you up. This place is overrun with fey. And we just kinda, um..."  
  
"Your wife is dead," Jacob says.  
  
Silas sighs. "I know."  
  
"You knew?"  
  
"I heard things sometimes, about the goings-on back on Earth. Fairy gossip. I know about the redcap."  
  
"Oh, that's dead too," I say. "We just killed it."  
  
Rune looks back, since we're talking at normal volume now. "So is the man your wife hooked up with. He was a total shithead and he made my life a living hell."  
  
Silas frowns. "I'm so sorry. I wish I had been there."  
  
"That makes two of us."  
  
We get to the car. Bart takes the wheel, Rune takes shotgun, Jacob and I sandwich Silas in the back seat between us. We're all beanpoles, so we fit. Mostly.  
  
Rune texts me, "I would not be opposed if you sat next to him with your gun in his direction."  
  
I text back. "Okay that's a little much for now."  
  
She sends me an angry face.  
  
I send, "I don't want to accidentally kill him."  
  
"Fine."  
  
"I can punch him too if you want though."  
  
She sends me a mischievous smiley.  
  
I end up not doing that. We get to a hotel in the next town over, give Silas his old clothes and stuff (mostly, but we keep the candle and journal). I patch him up with some first aid. Then we all sit down to have a much-needed chat.  
  
He confirms what we figured out already. He got trapped in the feylands, got forced to make a deal with the Broker to escape, the Broker only allowed him to find the door unharmed by other fey. No promises on anything else though -- like natural hazards, or finding the door in anything resembling a timely fashion.  
  
Rune tells him about her similar trip, and having to deal with the Broker too. Yeah, doesn't bode well she's got a contract too. Jacob's been helping her comb over it for loopholes. Silas says the Broker's too good and too smart to hope for that.  
  
Next we ask how he's got journal entries going back over a hundred years. Turns out no time travel was involved. Damn, never going to get that box on my bingo card.  
  
He's just stopped aging. Well okay. That's exactly as weird for a guy who's not undead or using chronomancy. We ask him how, he says it's a long story.  
  
"That's why we're sitting down for it," I say. "So what are you? Rune deserves to know by now. No more secrets."  
  
"I'm not exactly human," he says.  
  
"Well, duh. Were your born not-human or did you acquire not-human-ness later on?"  
  
"A little of column A, a little of column B."  
  
"And?"  
  
"Somewhere far back in our ancestry is... basically a trickster god. I'm not sure which one. As for column B, when I was younger, well, long story short is there was a time rift anomaly which, when I sealed it, I ended up absorbing part of it inadvertently. And I haven't aged since."  
  
Rune asks, "So can you do magic?"  
  
Silas says yes. Jacob asks him to show us. Silas claps his hands together and goes invisible, then pulls some other hat-trick style illusions.  
  
"I'm thinking Loki," Jacob says. "For your ancestor."  
  
Rune says, "Or maybe even Pan, for the irony..."  
  
"I have no idea," Silas says. "Or if it's even a god anyone has heard of these days."  
  
"You're an immortal either way," Jacob says.  
  
"If you've been around for over a hundred years like this," I ask, "was this the first time you started a family?"  
  
Jacob and Bart both gasp at me like I just yanked off Silas's toupee. They look at Rune and then me. I shrug. She deserves to know, one way or another.  
  
Silas says, "Yeah. I never married anyone before. I don't have any other children."  
  
Rune says, "Why Beth? What changed, why now?"  
  
"I fell in love. I didn't intend to. It just... happened. It just happens sometimes, even if it's not in your plans."  
  
"Did she know about any of this? The monster hunting?"  
  
"No. I never told her."  
  
"Why? Why all this secrecy, running off all the time, keeping us in the dark?"  
  
"I wanted to keep you all out of it, to keep you safe. I thought if I could just keep... everything away from you all..." Silas trails off and sighs. "But it didn't work. For any of you."  
  
"Yeah, no shit. Mom's dead, Basil's trapped in another dimension, and I have a destiny to kill the embodiment of Fear."  
  
Jacob cuts in, "Yeah, speaking of that. What can you tell us about him? Dr. Thomas Lark."  
  
Silas looks uncomfortable. "I take it from your expressions and tone that you've already fought him."  
  
"'Fought' would be a strong term for it."  
  
"I'm sorry to hear that, either way. He's... Well, you know how he is. Insufferable. Sadistic. A real prick."  
  
Bart says, "Actually, I never met him. Only they have."  
  
Jacob asks, "Silas, what can you tell us about those symbols in the book, and their connection to him? They are connected to him, yes?"  
  
Silas nods. "They are. Alexander Walker, the hunter who started the journal, fought Lark once. He managed to defeat him, in a way, by breaking his essence up and scattering it. The parts of Lark's soul, so to speak, made their way into various entities around the world. As long as those entities remain alive, he remains weakened and vulnerable."  
  
Everyone looks at Rune, then to Silas again. He frowns.  
  
"Yes. The last of those is Lil-- I mean, Rune. Theoretically, as long as they're alive, you can't die. You hold the final piece."  
  
Rune stares off with a sort of queasy, scared look. "I have a part of Lark inside me? Eugh."  
  
"Um, about those others," I say. "Uh, so. Uh. Bad news. We kind of... killed the nuckelavee. And a dragon. Which was probably THE dragon, because, uh, Alexa knows about those symbols and got upset when I asked about them, and she was hunting the dragon first, and um. Ah. Shit."  
  
Jacob says, "Yeah, those are all really bad signs, Van. I told you I didn't trust her. I said that from the beginning."  
  
I put my face in my hands to try to hide the stupid embarrassed flush that hits me. I groan. "Man, I really, really hope she's not evil. I don't want to have had sex with the enemy."  
  
"Point is, there's a kraken on that list," Jacob says. "And we've been ordered under duress to prevent a ship from sinking in the Bermuda Triangle."  
  
Silas says, "That would be the kraken, yes."  
  
Everyone sighs or groans at the same time. Great. So not only are we facing a kraken, we gotta figure out how to handle a kraken non-lethally for all parties.  
  
I look up from my hands again. "How did you even find out where the pieces of his soul went?"  
  
"Research. Lots and lots of research."  
  
"Why did they end up in those... things and people?"  
  
"I don't know. I don't think there's any reason for it. It just happened. Just bad luck."  
  
Rune tells him about how Fate's helping her out now. The visions, the hopefully awakening powers, the prophecy about being Fear's only weakness. We ask if Silas knows anything else. What happens when Lark dies, for example? Are we killing The Boogeyman, just one boogeyman out of a hundred, or the eternal concept of fear at all? Will people just stop feeling fear if he dies?  
  
Silas doesn't know. He's outta the whole loop on that end. Oh well.  
  
He makes some promises to help out Rune any way he can if she ever asks. Jacob takes him outside to talk privately. Naturally, Rune goes to listen to the door. Then Bart, of course, because he's a snoop. And since everybody else is gonna be privy to the chat, I might as well go over and put an ear to the door too, right?  
  
It isn't much of a chat. Jacob lays down how we're Rune's caretakers now. Says we're watching out for her, we have been for a while, and nothing's gonna change that. It's not exactly a warning or even a lecture, but it's -- something.  
  
Jacob comes back to our door. Everybody scrambles away and pretends to look busy when he opens it. He obviously doesn't buy that for a second, and mumbles something about the talk being private for a reason.  
  
We spend a few more nights at the hotel for Silas to recuperate. The boys clearly, uh, help him along with some hands-on healing. Bart conveniently vanishes to his room the first night. Then Jacob. Then both of them. Hot damn, guess they all had a lotta stress to relieve.  
  
By October 19th, Silas is ready to hit the road. So's Bart. He says he's not as cut out for this monster hunting business after all. Considering our latest mission also involved hunting a not-monster, I think he's just tetchy about getting busted for conspiracy to commit premeditated murder.  
  
Hey, I watch and read enough crime dramas to know some of this shit, even if I'm crap at playing a Fed next to the real thing.  
  
We swing by Detroit again to drop off Bart at home. Silas goes his own way. Everybody exchanges phone numbers first, duh. No need letting Rune's dad fall off the planet again.  
  
Less than a month to the cruise now. And no good plans for it. We toss around the idea of making a bomb threat to keep the ship docked. Or planting an actual bomb and sinking it when nobody's on board. Jacob doesn't like either idea, 'cause those are some serious crimes and we only barely avoided prison last month already.  
  
I suggest Jacob uses his ice magic to freeze the kraken in place long enough for the ship to pass by.  
  
"First of all, thank you for your confidence in my abilities," he says. "But I think you may be underestimating just how huge a kraken really is."


	11. Canis Lupus Vroomus

I won't miss nightmares once I'm a vampire again. Somewhere between Montana and Florida, I have an old familiar one: My dad's there, just about to ship off, everyone else is all hugs and kisses and I'm yelling for 'em not to let him leave, 'cause I'm the only one who knows he won't come back.  
  
"Don't be silly, Vanessa," my grandparents say. "He'll be fine. It's only the Feylands."  
  
Well, that's new. Guess the Silas stuff got mixed in there too.  
  
New case in Doraville, Georgia. Yee and haw.  
  
It's October 24th. A woman named Felicia Dively got murdered in an alleyway. Animal bites, claw marks all over her body, heart torn out. Last night was a full moon, too. Obviously werewolves. We still do some cursory research to cover our bases, but yeah, it's werewolves.  
  
We head to where the body was found. There's crime scene tape, lots of cops, and a crowd of rubberneckers. We split up and blend in easily. We find one interesting clue on the scene: "First kill" written on the wall in blood. Hm.  
  
While Rune distracts the cops with her innocent, curious kid act, I scan the crowd itself for anyone suspicious. Anyone else too interested.  
  
I spot a teen boy, kinda delinquent looking like Rune, jeans and a hoodie, staring at the scene. This real short East Asian guy, serious-looking with close-cut hair, comes up and grabs the kid by the scruff to haul him off. The kid, by the way, doesn't look any variety of Asian, or resemble this guy at all.  
  
I slip outta the crowd and follow casually at a safe distance, acting like I'm just a normal civilian. I text the group to tell 'em what I'm doing. Jacob and Rune get back in the car to keep close.  
  
I'm close enough to hear the guy talking. He's scolding this kid for hanging out with a bad crowd, says they're a bad influence on him, how dare he stay out all night with them, he's in big trouble now. They get to a motel and go into room 101. I head to the front desk and book room 102. I slip in and listen at the wall. More scolding. Nothing else happens.  
  
Jacob and Rune show up eventually after some more sleuthing. They bring another chick in tow. I recognize her from the crowd. She's itty bitty, a little androgynous, Asian and tan, with black hair. Wears a leather jacket and a red scarf. She introduces herself as Khulan. She's a monster hunter too.  
  
We trade intel. I tell her about the two guys, she tells us she saw multiple foot prints at the scene. I grill her a little as usual, since she's interested in maybe traveling with us. Can she handle being on a boat in danger? Is she good in a fight? How's she feel about the undead?  
  
She's not keen on undead. Well, no surprise. Most people aren't, 'cause most undead aren't good company. Turns out she has a bad history with ghouls, too. She cautiously reserves judgment on intelligent and friendly undead. Good enough.  
  
At some point I make some cheesy pun at her about this or that. She shoots one back, winks, finger-guns. Hell yeah. I return both gestures.  
  
Then she winks and finger-guns at Jacob, who looks a little weirded out by that. Then she does it at Rune, who blushes. Ah. Hell yeah revoked. Even I've got more decorum than rapid-fire hitting on every member of a family at once.  
  
Without better leads, we all stay in the room to stake out the neighbors. I get out my rifle scope to peep through the curtain, writing down all the license plates in the parking lot.  
  
Night falls. Room 101 goes quiet, but nobody leaves. We take turns keeping watch. In the morning, Rune tells us she had a vision: A small army of hulking, humanoid wolf shapes, gathering at the edge of town in the darkness, howling at once with the moonrise, then rampaging through Doraville on a murdering spree.  
  
Yeah, Fate, we get it! It's werewolves!  
  
The others go get breakfast. Khulan leaves on a motorcycle to meet them. I cross that license plate off the list.  
  
After a while, the two guys leave room 101. I wait a bit before I follow. They're paranoid, looking around constantly, but they don't notice me. I'm just that good.  
  
They dip into a convenience store at a gas station. I go into a post office across the street and play busy with brochures while watching. They stock up on rations. Froot Loops, milk, jerky, nothing unusual. They leave. I pretend to need a change-of-address form when a postal worker asks if I need help, and I head out to follow the pair back. They go straight to their motel room again. Okay. I go back to 102 and resume the stake out.  
  
Not long after, I hear an explosion down the street, from the direction of the gas station. Uh oh.  
  
I text the group asking if they need backup, or if I should stay put and keep watch. Jacob sends the code to come help. I grab my 9-millimeter and run over. By the time I get there, the gas station's already up in flames. Cops and EMTs everywhere. Jacob's busted up, but the medics take care of him, so I go find Rune and Khulan.  
  
The girls are on the other side of the building with the store cashier. He's all freaked out and shaken up. Says a werewolf attacked him. Welp. We send him off with medics, pull Jacob away, go back to the motel, and go straight to Room 101. I bang on the door and keep at it until the older guy answers.  
  
We tell him we're investigating the murder, we know it was werewolves, and we need whatever intel the two can share. He lets us in the room.  
  
The guy's pissy and stubborn the whole time. Every simple question turns into ten minutes of having to argue with him about why answering us is actually a good idea. He gets pissy about everything. Acts like asking for his name, even a nickname, is equivalent to asking for his dick measurements. After pulling teeth for eternity, we finally get the run-down.  
  
They're both hunters, neither one's human. Older guy is a Japanese being called a jorugumo, a type of yokai. We nickname him Peter since he makes a whole federal issue about names. I point out that if he didn't flip his lid about names, it wouldn't be so obvious it's a pseudonym.  
  
The kid's name is Ethan. He's a werewolf by birth. Turns out it can be inherited, but it's contagious too, so we all gotta get our shots before taking on the pack.  
  
Basically, these two had the bad luck of rolling into a town that's a werewolf pack's turf. They got pissed that he didn't wanna join up with 'em, so they're putting the pressure on him to join or else. Ethan and Peter are holed up in the motel with some magic anti-detection wards until they can catch a bus outta town.  
  
The pack's called the Silver Fangs. They double as a motorcycle gang and hang out at a local biker bar. Their leader's a big guy with slicked-back black hair, looks and acts real douchey. Don't know his name, doesn't really matter.  
  
Jacob says he knows about lycanthropy immunizations. Obviously there's no way to get those in town, so we head to the closest place nearby to get 'em. Everyone gets an injection. Apparently not a permanent fix, but it'll last long enough.  
  
We scrounge up more silver weapons and ammo. Werewolves are pretty basic. No surprises. Just like the movies.  
  
Khulan hands a weapon over to Rune. Dunno why, but something about how she gives it over and says, "Here you go," sounds inappropriately affectionate. Ugh, the hell? She didn't even make it an innuendo.  
  
Jacob's giving a similar glare over his phone at 'em though. Khulan stares at us. We stare at her.  
  
"Rune, your parents are weird," she says.  
  
We bury our faces in our phones and turn away.  
  
"Yeah, they are," Rune says.  
  
I turn red, but I'm trying not to grin.  
  
It takes us all day and part of the next to prepare. We drive on down to the biker bar. Jacob enchants all our weapons. Probably shoulda done that at the hotel. Whatever.  
  
I cut in front and kick the door open. A bunch of bikers stare expectantly, glaring, growling. I spot Douchey McAlpha towering head-and-shoulders over the rest.  
  
"Hey," I say. "Raise your hand if you're a vam-- wait, shit. I mean werewolf. Raise your hand if you're a werewolf. Dammit."  
  
They all start transforming.  
  
"Okay!" We draw our weapons.  
  
Someone smacks the jukebox. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" starts playing. Fuckin' A, this is some fight music.  
  
Werewolves rush us. I'm firing my gun, Rune's firing electricity, Jacob's shooting ice magic, Khulan's stabbing with her big-ass knife. Rune gets chucked outta window. I get thrown into a wolf, and before I know it, a wolf's right in my face keeping me down, tearing me up.  
  
Time to try magic for the first time. I raise my hand and focus, remembering what Jacob taught me, remembering how it felt to use my vampire mojo. Pulling on that dark energy. It's not sitting on the surface like before, it's deep down, gotta wick it up and pull it out.  
  
A bolt of dark energy lances outta my arm and seems to stab the werewolf in the soul and suck it out. It looks like a Tesla coil or a bug-zapper the way it arcs over and bounces back, or like food dye dropped into moving water, all purpley-red, almost black, with a surprisingly loud 'whoosh'. It's sick as hell, is what I'm getting at.  
  
The magic pulls the werewolf's energy out and into me, and all my injuries close right up, just like with the vampire healing.  
  
I look at my hand. "Groovy. Yeah, this feels right."  
  
There werewolf's not down yet. Jacob freezes it in place. I finish it with a head-shot.  
  
We mop up the rest in short order. I'm the only one feeling fresh as a spring rain when we're done. Everyone else is bleeding everywhere. I do some hasty first aid to keep 'em standing for now. Jacob collects bullet shells. I loot the cash register. Khulan loots some top-shelf liquor.  
  
"Hope no one cares if I take this," Khulan says. "I'm not technically old enough to drink yet, but are any of you going to stop me?"  
  
The thought of her trying to booze up Rune pops into my head, and I don't like it.  
  
"Feel free, but keep it to yourself," I say. "No sharing. YOU can drink. Just you. Got it?"  
  
"Yeah, sure, whatever."  
  
We all agree to burn the place down after us. We go back to hide in the motel before the cops show up. I wonder what kinda headline two arsons in one week in a small town is gonna make. Probably something creative. Like, 'Two Arsons in One Week in Small Town'.  
  
The next day, Peter knocks on our room door. I answer. He says thanks for the help. I say you're welcome. I tell him to stay safe, and call us if they need monster hunting help again in the future.  
  
We drive south and arrive in Florida.  
  
The day after that, Rune wakes us up way early in the morning. Asks us again if she can get a tattoo, says something about it being her birthday (obviously lying), and something about minors being allowed to get tattoos in Florida (probably true). Jacob thinks about it for a while, then asks me what I think.  
  
"I never had a problem with her getting at tattoo in the first place," I say, shrugging. "So yeah."  
  
We ask her what kinda tattoo she wants. She says she wants a lightning bolt going down her arm, with some Norse runes for strength and protection around it. We say sure and take her to a parlor.  
  
After, when we're sitting around another hotel room, I ask Rune what her real birthday is. She hems and haws about it, so I sweeten the deal by telling her she can't get any gifts if we don't know when to give 'em. She caves in and finally says it's February 9th. I tell her to write up a wish list.  
  
"So what's yours?" she asks.  
  
"Oh, uhh. It's... the 10th. Of next month."  
  
"So we can do something for it before the cruise!"  
  
"Ah, uh, sure. If you want. I don't usually, uh, do birthdays, but sure."  
  
The next day, the body of a little girl named Lyla Valentine is found dead-center in a graveyard, in a town right between us and the cruise.


	12. Graveyard Smash

  
Lyla Valentine was 11 years old, from New York City. No missing persons report. She was found dead before anyone knew she was gone. How she went from being in NYC to Florida and got beaten to death was mysterious enough to count as 'probably magic'.  
  
The next night, another corpse turns up in the same graveyard. A 24-year-old man from Nashville, Tennessee, stabbed repeatedly. Name: Jason Baker. Rune says she had a vision about Nashville the other night.  
  
The night before Halloween, a mid-30s woman from Idaho appears dead with her throat slit. Her name was Vanessa Reynolds.  
  
We roll into Fish Creek, Florida. The whole graveyard's closed off, cops stationed at the four exits, one gate for each cardinal direction. Jacob and I get in our black suits and pick some fake IDs. I had Victoria Reynolds slated next, but with the last vic's name, I better grab another one from further down the stack.  
  
I go with Agent Remy Fox. Jacob is coincidentally Agent Alex Wolf. The cops give us a funny look, but nobody dares question the feds. We ask for details, witnesses. Nobody saw or heard anything. We talk to the undertaker and other cemetery workers. Nothing. The place is big enough that a legitimate, non-magical murderer could get away unseen and unheard.  
  
No need to ask the usual things about weird recent behavior, old enemies, sudden dabbling with the occult. We know this is someone personally calling us out here, trying to lure us in and threaten us at the same time. Our list of possible old enemies is long enough that we just need enough details to know who to try ambushing tonight.  
  
We look around where the bodies were found. They all showed up in the middle, a big rotunda. We look at the gravestones, take note of the names there. Nothing familiar.  
  
Since Khulan and Rune are still outside the cemetery, I get a group call going so we can all go over theories. Lark is the biggest culprit we can think of. I wanna eliminate other suspects first.  
  
Alexa, maybe. If she's actually working for Lark. Maybe another dragon. Maybe some other monster of a kind we've killed before, or some other ally of an enemy we didn't know about. Maybe Bobdrian. It doesn't make sense to threaten us away from Florida when he wanted us to come here in the first place. Jacob says it's possible anyway -- the demon shows up sometimes to happily kill his friends just to make his life hell.  
  
Jacob mutes the phone and says it might be the Broker. I say maybe, but doesn't seem like a fairy's style. I unmute the phone and Rune asks what the hell that was about. We say it's about her "recent trip abroad" and the "agreement" made there, and it's up to her if she wants to let Khulan know about it. She says she'll tell Khulan later.  
  
Jacob tries his scrying magic again, but he's trying the version where he looks into the past instead of just looking at another place. He's done this before once, and it got him stupid drunk on time magic. He looks at last night's events. Sees Vanessa appear outta thin air, still alive, with Michael Myers. She tries to run, doesn't get far before he slashes her throat open.  
  
Confirmation the victims are getting teleported in. Doesn't tell us exactly who the killer is though, unless we're about to find out every movie monster is real.  
  
He scries on the night before too. Jason teleported in, got stabbed by, well, Jason, the movie killer. I never realized before how basic and boring these movie killer names were.  
  
Jacob scries on the night before that. Lyla appears the same way. Some guy Jacob doesn't recognize appears and beats her to death with a baseball bat. Jacob looks pretty disturbed by this one, more than the others. I get a weird feeling, Google Lyla's family, pull up a photo of her dad. White guy with long, greasy black hair. Jacob says it's the same guy.  
  
So, all people the victims were afraid of. (I make a mental note to hunt down Mr. Valentine later.) Jacob confirms he can sense that conjuration magic was used, not transmutation, so it's not just a really spiteful shapeshifter. Sounds like Lark. Shit.  
  
Tempting to just drive off and not look back. But whatever's going on, we gotta try to stop it. We try researching Lark again, embodiments of fear, boogeymen, whatever, trying to find a weakness. Nothing. Rune says Fate says she's Lark's weakness.  
  
Guess we'll do a stake out tonight on the graveyard. For now, we got time to kill. Rune tells Khulan about her trip to the Feylands and her deal with the Broker.  
  
She also tells me she asked Fate about Cain. He's the only one who can turn me into a vampire again, but we can't just have someone harvest his fang to make the siring potion for us. I gotta go to him. Rune also tried the special candle on that journal page about Cain, the allegedly blank one. Once again it reveals hidden text: Elise, the middle hunter author of the journal (between Alexander Walker, and Silas) met Cain, in Connecticut. They had tea. He's a chill dude apparently.  
  
Khulan asks who Cain is. We just say that he's both the guy from the Bible, and a vampire, and we need to find him for personal reasons.  
  
I tell the group by now that my "mentor" was last spotted in New Mexico with a bunch of bankers and investors. We agree he's definitely gotta die. He's an evil monster, duh.  
  
I do some more research while we have time. I try to find out if there's a sudden rash of nightmares in Fish Creek, but it's impossible to find something like that on short notice, so I give up. I text Zeke and Mike, ask where they are, if they're okay. They're up in Michigan (not Harbor Springs, thank god). I tell 'em Bart's in Detroit, he's into dudes and he's down for threesomes. They don't reply.  
  
I text Alexa too. Combination of worried for her, and by her. She doesn't reply. That makes me more worried, in at least one of those ways.  
  
Evening falls. Time to gear up. We offer up our weapons for Jacob to enchant. He sighs and makes a production about it.  
  
He starts grumbling, "Oh, thanks for enchanting our weapons, Jacob, sorry for using up your money and gas and being totally dependent on you, Jacob..."  
  
Rune and I frown.  
  
She speaks up first. "Jacob, are we... a burden?"  
  
I say, "Yeah, I mean, I try to be thrifty and not buy more than I need. We can't exactly get jobs in every town we land in..."  
  
"No, no. You're not. It's fine," he says.  
  
Rune says, "It doesn't sound like it's fine."  
  
I say, "This isn't the first time you've made comments like that. Not the first time recently, either."  
  
He says, "No. It's not the money."  
  
"Is the magic, like, taxing on you? Does it use up your energy? We don't need enchanting if it's a burden."  
  
"Not exactly, but using this much magic in such a short time is risky. There's a risk any time I use magic, I could hurt myself or cause something unintended to happen."  
  
"Do you have to enchant each one separately, or can we just throw 'em in a pile?"  
  
He says it might work. He already got this bunch though. He can try a bulk-cast next time.  
  
Loaded up, we head back to the graveyard. Jacob and I drive right on in. Khulan and Rune have to circle around. The cops are still posted at the four gates. I look for high ground and find a good mausoleum on a hill in the northeast quadrant, shimmy onto the roof, and start looking for any broken sections of fence or something that the teens can squeeze through.  
  
Jacob goes to the middle and casts a magic circle on the rotunda, something to trap anything that appears. He moves away to hide while keeping an eye on it. He also casts some kind of ward that makes the cops, and other normal people, not really notice or care about us.  
  
I spot a gap in the fence and text Rune and Khulan directions. They sneak in. Rune finds a big gravestone to hide behind, south of me, near the rotunda. Khulan's diagonally across the cemetery from me, in the southwest quadrant, with her bow.  
  
We wait, and wait. I'm feeling paranoid. I keep sweeping my scope across the park. Checking on the others. Stopping to check my own back. We're all split up, far apart, expecting a possibly unknown threat that can teleport across the whole damn country overnight. A threat that knows our names.  
  
At midnight, a body appears in the rotunda. Just a body. Already dead. No killer. Jacob goes over to inspect it, accidentally messing up the trap circle. It's a woman, black hair and jacket, got a name carved in her forehead: Khulan.  
  
I'm starting to feel tired, like weirdly tired and sleepy. The others look suddenly sleepy too. Great.  
  
On my next sweep of the park, I notice something else. In the northwest quadrant, hanging from a big tree, are seven corpses that weren't there a second ago. They all have names carved on their foreheads, too: Ezekiel, Michael, Marcus, Bartholomew, Silas, Alexa, Elise.  
  
I text the group this info. Khulan goes over to check the bodies. Nothing special about them. They all sorta look like those people with those names, but it's not really them, but I'm getting more paranoid by the second.  
  
Something occurs to me. I text the group: "He knows Silas is out."  
  
Then, "Alexa not working for him apparently. Elise ?????" Because like, when have we met Elise? I thought she was already dead, like Walker Sr.  
  
We're getting more tired, more tense. I keep wondering what hell-vision Lark will try to put us through this time. Not like I can be scared of turning human anymore, right? I'm even cured of all my diseases this time. I don't really wanna think about what new things I'll find out I'm afraid of.  
  
So, maybe we can just taunt this guy out. He's somewhere around omniscient, maybe he can see what we're saying. So I text the group, "Hey, so Lark is too scared to face us, huh."  
  
Rune texts, "I don't think so."  
  
"Ironic he's the one being a coward now."  
  
"No, he's toying with us, biding his time to catch us tired and off guard."  
  
Ugh, she's probably right.  
  
Khulan texts, "I'm just gonna sleep or something."  
  
I ask if we should take shifts or something. Khulan says definitely, and instantly falls asleep on a grave.  
  
"Oh wait, the nightmares," I text as I remember what happened the last time we fell asleep in Lark's haunt. "Ah crap."  
  
"No!" Rune texts. "We gotta stay awake!"  
  
I can see she's struggling to do that. Jacob's looking worse, which is a whole feat, since he runs on fumes even on a good day.  
  
"I have am idea," he texts.  
  
I ask, "What is it? What's going on?"  
  
"It might not be the smrtest one..."  
  
"Do we ever have smart ones honestly."  
  
And then he's out like a light.  
  
"Ah crap. Should we go just back to the motel?" I ask Rune.  
  
She's already out.  
  
"AH CRAP."  
  
\---  
  
I'm lying on my stomach on a mausoleum roof, at midnight, in a graveyard, having just watched all three of my party members drop unconscious from dark magic. It's pulling at my brain. I fight it off.  
  
I wanna run down there to help, but nothing else is happening. And I can't hope to get there in time if something is, especially with teleporting enemies. And if I give up the high ground, I lose sight of the others, and leave myself open to attack. So I just keep watch, tense and tired.  
  
Nothing else happens all night. The others wake up eventually, looking worse for wear. We regroup. They all had awful nightmares. Nobody got any actual rest. They're even more tired than before.  
  
We get back to the hotel room. Jacob flops face-first into bed almost as soon as we walk in. Rune and I get his shoes and jacket off, tuck him in. We agree to take turns on watch with Khulan. I take last watch, since despite not sleeping at all, I'm somehow the least tired. Go figure. Nobody wakes up Jacob. It's probably his first solid night's rest in his whole life.  
  
By the time we're all rested, it's time to head back to the cemetery. Jacob mass-enchants our pile of weapons first.  
  
Rune tells us about another vision she had. It was the graveyard, and Halloween -- today, now -- and a bunch of kids snuck into the graveyard. Then a white sheet ghost floated over to them, then on top of them, and the kids start exploding, until all but one of them is dead. So that's something we gotta prevent tonight.  
  
Dammit, though, why's it gotta be on Halloween? I wanna crash some costume party. Or hell, we could all dress up and take the teens trick-or-treating. But no. We have to keep Lark from murdering more children. Thanks, Lark.  
  
We go to the cemetery, take our positions again. The city's full of trick-or-treaters. I keep an eye out for any kids trying to get into the cemetery. Eventually I spot some, trying to sneak in the same way Rune and Khulan did. Rune goes over, tells 'em something that makes 'em turn around and run off again.  
  
We keep waiting. The noise outside dies down. Trick-or-treaters finish up. Kids go home, go to bed. Midnight falls. No bodies appear. The cemetery gates close. The sky is unnaturally dark. We're pulled into some kind of shadow dimension, I guess. Great!  
  
And then, there he is, right in the rotunda, Dr. Thomas Lark. I have the scope on him. He's not moving around. Perfect, stationary target. Obviously a trap. He turns and looks right at me.  
  
He says we should all come out now. When he talks, we all hear it in our heads. He tells me I'm in a pretty rude place right now. I look over and see, somehow, that this mausoleum belongs to the Lark family.  
  
Khulan texts me: "Van, you shooting first or am I?"  
  
I shoulder my rifle, slide down, and walk over to Lark with my hands empty.  
  
"Wise choice," he says, with his dumb smug smile. God I wanna punch him.  
  
But he's too tough to fight. Probably. I might not think very hard about most things, but I also try not to do any dumb shit I haven't thought enough about first. And I haven't got enough info on Lark to know what to think yet. The last time I shot him in the face, he dropped me outta midair hard enough to break bones. And that was before I turned human and extra-breakable.  
  
"Hey," I say. "So. Waddya want?"  
  
By now we're all standing. He's just looking around as us smugly.  
  
"I thought it was obvious," he says. "I'm going to need you all to stop what you're doing."  
  
"You mean being in the graveyard, or the thing with the boat?"  
  
"I mean your entire mission to kill me. I think it's clear what will happen if you don't stop. People will die."  
  
We point out that the reason we're doing this is due to him already killing people, completely unrelated to us coming after him. We ask why he didn't just kill us before.  
  
"You know, it's funny. Usually, when hunters discover me and come after me, that's what I do. They come into whatever town I'm in at the time, and I kill them. But you were different. When you arrived, I felt something about you I had never felt before."  
  
"Uhhh."  
  
"Oh, no, not like that. I don't feel any kind of affection for any of you."  
  
"Whew."  
  
"For the first time, however, I saw a group of hunters who seemed to pose any kind of legitimate threat," Lark says.  
  
"Fear felt afraid?"  
  
"Yes. Only for the briefest, faintest of moments, but it was incredibly intriguing nonetheless."  
  
"So you didn't kill us because you couldn't, or you didn't want to?"  
  
Lark hums. "A little of column A, a little of column B."  
  
We glance at Rune. His only weakness, made human, and functionally immortal as long as any other creature containing his fractured essence was still alive. And on a mission to kill him specifically. Yeah, I can see why he's a little afraid of her.  
  
We ask him about the mausoleum. He says this is his family plot. They go way back, early European settlers. He used to be human. He's not clear on explaining how he got promoted to being Fear. We ask if there was a different Fear before him, he says probably, we ask what happens when he dies, if someone will just take his place. He says probably, eventually.  
  
Khulan suddenly raises her bow and looses an arrow, pegging him right in the eye. Everyone jumps into action, no questions asked, it's fight time now. My main thought is that we gotta protect Rune: If she's the only one who can kill him, the rest of us can take a fall instead. Problem is though she's on the other side of him, and shadows are rising outta the ground and taking shape between us all.  
  
The shadows turn into the movie monsters and slasher killers. And then giant fists, throwing and slamming us around. I'm firing from the shoulder without the scope, getting slammed down and then hit with a dozen huge shadow spikes from below. Jacob's getting knocked around, chased around by Jason the killer, throwing ice shots.  
  
Rune is wailing with her bat, throwing lightning. Lark moves fast as hell, punches her hard as hell before anyone can react. Khulan's shooting her bow, we're all getting chased around my monsters, nobody can get close enough to try to protect anyone.  
  
Rune gets pushed back, separated, Jacob's running for his life, Khulan has to jump in to peel Jason off, but then she's fighting two shadow monsters at once and nobody's on Lark but Rune.  
  
I'm getting beat up too, but I decide to see if my magic works on his magic. I raise my hand and do my necromancy life-steal thing. It works, and it's weirdly awful. I heal up, but sucking out the evil essence summoned up by the embodiment of fear feels like drinking a milkshake so fast you get a brain freeze -- except it's inside my soul.  
  
We finally beat down the shadow conjurations, then we beat down Lark to almost a pulp. He can't move, he's just there while Rune's wailing on him with the bat. He looks bored and annoyed.  
  
"Is this what we're doing?" he says. "Are you just going to do that all night?"  
  
I shout, "Punch him! You're his weakness!"  
  
Rune keeps hitting. She tries punching him. It's not working. It's like we just hit a brick wall where we can't hurt him any more.  
  
"Why isn't this working?!" she yells in frustration.  
  
"Because you're not you yet," Lark says.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?!"  
  
"It means you can't kill me. And I'm going to leave now, because this is extremely unpleasant."  
  
He doesn't sound like his usual smug, laughing-on-the-inside self anymore. But he doesn't sound frightened either. He sounds pissed. That's bad.  
  
"I hate all of you," he goes on. "Eat shit and die."  
  
"Get fucked," I say, but he's already gone.  
  
The shadows disappear. The sky goes back to normal, the stars reappear. The gates open. There isn't anything left to do but leave. So we leave. The cemetery, the hotel, the town. We drive until we're too tired to keep driving. We stop at another hotel, get a room, Khulan passes out instantly.  
  
Jacob pulls out a huge bag of candy and starts eating. "Mm. Discount day-after-Halloween candy."  
  
Rune's eyes lock target on the Reese's cups. They have some silly squabble about the candy. I'm off to the side, watching, amused.  
  
Jacob jokingly goes, "Well, I don't know. I might eat them all myself. I might even just throw it all out, because sometimes you have to destroy something beautiful. I don't have to share any with you."  
  
Rune says, "Well, I don't have to help exorcise Adrian either."  
  
Jacob stops eating, sits up straighter, suddenly serious. He and I both look at Rune in surprise.  
  
"What?" he says.  
  
"I called Silas. I told him to come meet us in Florida to help with an exorcism ritual for Adrian."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"He knows things," she goes on. "I think he can help. He knows more about demons than just what's written in the journal. He said he needs more details about what kind of demon is possessing Adrian, and then he can help us come up with the ritual we need."  
  
"Rune... I appreciate the thought, but you didn't have to do that. You shouldn't have done that."  
  
"Of course I should," she says. "You deserve it. Adrian deserves it."  
  
"He does, but," Jacob says, "that isn't your fight to fight. I wouldn't ask that of you."  
  
"You don't have to ask. I want to help. I'm going to help you get Adrian back, just like I'm going to help Van find Cain. It's... what family does for each other."  
  
I look away to the side, overcome with a rush of warm and fuzzies. That's the first time she's ever actually called me family, even indirectly.  
  
Jacob sets the candy aside, gets up, goes over and hugs her. Just when I'm not sure if I should leave to give 'em space, he gives me a look and waves me over. I go join the group hug. It's damn nice. Don't tell anyone, but I actually love hugs, and I love these guys. I go to sleep pretty happy that night, all things considered.  
  
Of course, my life being what it is, that doesn't last.  
  
I get a text in the middle of the night. I wake up, check my phone. It's from Alexa. It's all gibberish. I text back, "What?"  
  
I hear a thump outside the door.  
  
I go on high alert. I jump outta bed, grab my 9-millimeter, peek out the peephole, see nothing, open the door from behind the wall outta sight. I hear nothing. I look outside and downward.  
  
There's Alexa, beaten and bloodied as hell. Her phone's still in her hand. Her blood's all over the screen.


	13. Birthday Bash

  
Appropriately for the zenith of Scorpio season, a chick who banged me once has just appeared half-dead and soaked in blood outside my hotel room in the middle of the night.  
  
"Oh shit."  
  
I set my gun aside and kneel down to Alexa. She's still conscious, barely. She reaches out to me. As soon as her hand touches mine, there's a burning lance of pain like she turned my skin into velcro and then yanked it off. I'm suddenly a lot more hurt and tired than before, and she looks a little less deathly. She passes out anyway.  
  
I grab her, drag her into the room, kick the door shut, grab my med kit and start doing first aid. "Guys! Wake up!"  
  
Everyone's awake and alert in seconds. I get Alexa onto a bed. Everyone asks what happened, I tell them she just fell outside after sending the gibberish text, and about the life-steal magic. Khulan asks who she even is. I tell her Alexa's another hunter we fought with once.  
  
Jacob says he thinks Alexa's a lich. I point out that she's breathing and bleeding, which undead don't usually do. And now that we've met Silas, we know there's other types of immortal people.  
  
I've done everything I can. I say that if she's mortal, she might need to eat, and someone should do a snack run for emergency rations.  
  
"So like a buncha donuts to bring up her blood sugar again?" Khulan says.  
  
"No," I say. "Donuts are bad for a blood sugar crash. Juice boxes are the go-to for that. And she needs iron for the blood loss in general. Trust me. I know this stuff."  
  
Rune asks if we should take Alexa to a hospital. We all debate about it for half a minute before deciding that Alexa's stable enough, and also if she life-steals an innocent nurse, there's gonna be some hard explaining to do. Typical hunter problem. Too many questions.  
  
Khulan and Rune go off to buy snacks. I sit in a chair next to the bed and worry. They get back, we wait, Alexa wakes up. I ask if she needs to eat, she says yes, we give her snacks. Everyone else takes a juice box. The girls got a bulk batch.  
  
We tell Alexa we have a lot of questions, and we'd kinda prefer it if she didn't avoid them all this time. She says that's fair, and she's at our mercy now anyway, so ask away.  
  
First we ask what happened to her. She says she was on a case, when suddenly someone popped up and kicked her ass. Which is already obvious, since she's covered in bruises and lacerations. We ask for more detail. Turns out she was hunting after an old 'associate' who happens to be a necromancer. And then Lark shows up -- doesn't do the dirty work himself though, just conjures up his shadow monsters to do it.  
  
We ask how she got here. Did Lark drop her off to make a point? She says no, she teleported here herself. We ask how she found us. She says she didn't, not really. She didn't know where we were, she just tried to send herself to wherever we happened to be.  
  
I ask about the gibberish text. She says she just couldn't work the touch screen in her state.  
  
We tell her about our altercation with Lark, and how he threatened every other hunter we know, and Elise. Alexa doesn't know anything about Elise. Nobody does, except maybe Silas, and he's not here yet.  
  
"Okay, so. I hate to ask this. But I have to," I say. "Um. Are you -- were you -- working for Lark?"  
  
"Not exactly. And not exactly willingly. I owed him a favor, for something he... helped me out with a long time ago," Alexa says.  
  
"That favor was to kill that dragon, wasn't it? Because of the symbols."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"So it was actually bad to kill it? But... I mean, look, it was going to kill that whole town, and it already killed that one old guy..."  
  
"If it weren't for that warding seal keeping it on the mountain, it wouldn't have," Alexa says. "I wasn't lying when I said I didn't know who put that magic circle there, though. It wasn't Lark's work, it was something else, and he took advantage of it to trap the dragon there."  
  
We tell her about the seals, the journal, the broken pieces of Lark.  
  
"All that's left now are Cain, the phoenix, the gorgon, the kraken, and..." Jacob says.  
  
There's a pause. He apparently decides not to mention Rune having the last piece.  
  
"And the kraken is probably what we'll have to kill to save the cruise ship."  
  
"Wait," I say. "Phoenix? I didn't see a phoenix in the book."  
  
"It was hidden. The candle. The entry about an 'acid demon' was a cover."  
  
"Well, at least we know Cain's still alive. Well, not alive. Existing. Either way." I look at Alexa. "Sooo. Another question. And definitely don't avoid it this time. What are you?"  
  
"Yeah," she says, "I figured you'd get around to asking that. It might be hard to believe, though."  
  
Jacob says, "Try us. You'd be surprised by what we might believe."  
  
"I am -- or rather, I was a dragon."  
  
"...Cool," I say.  
  
Jacob says, "Silas said some dragons become human, after all."  
  
"Oh right. But I wasn't clear on how it worked." I look at Alexa. "Can you change back? Are you just shapeshifted into a human form right now?"  
  
"No, it's permanent. It isn't a case of simply changing forms. I changed what I was, what I am, forever," Alexa says.  
  
"Why?"  
  
She hesitates. "I would rather not talk about that right now. Why don't you ask me later, when I've had some time to recover?"  
  
"Okay. So you can't change forms at all anymore?"  
  
"I have some minor shapeshifting abilities, but that's about it."  
  
I pause. "How, uh... How precise -- What kind of shapeshifting abilities?"  
  
She starts to answer, looks at me, turns red, and buries her face in her hands. I cough and turn just as red. Everyone else gives us a look.  
  
Khulan says to me, "So you're a dragonfucker."  
  
I turn redder. Alexa mutters how she isn't really a dragon anymore. I mutter that it still counts. She gives me a look, I duck my head.  
  
"Uh-hm. Anyway. So. Uh," I say. "Is that why you have the lightning magic and stuff? And don't have to sleep?"  
  
"Some of my powers carried over, yes," Alexa says. "Not having to sleep isn't... related to being a dragon, no."  
  
"What, then?"  
  
"You're a dracolich, aren't you?" Jacob says.  
  
"Well. Yes," Alexa says. "When I was still a dragon, I performed a ritual, which I'd rather not get into right now, which made me immortal, in a way."  
  
"Where is your phylactery?"  
  
"I don't... have one. That's not how it works. And how it works doesn't exactly matter right now."  
  
After some more discussion, we agree to let Alexa stay with us, and travel with us if she wants to, and warn her about the possibly-deadly cruise ship mission coming up soon. Alexa agrees.  
  
Khulan keeps making her annoying lewd comments and flirtations at everyone in rotation and I finally snap at her to cut it out.  
  
"What's the big deal? Why can't I hit on Alexa?" Khulan says. "Would you rather I hit on you? Or Rune?"  
  
"No, it's -- Because -- that's not -- Just, damn, do you have to hit on everyone in the same --" I stammer.  
  
"Oh, excuse me, aren't you the one who tried to bang a spider-monster once?"  
  
"Uh, no, it was a trap to lure it out so we could kill it?"  
  
"Uh-huh. So you weren't really being a monsterfucker, you were just pretending."  
  
"Yes? That's what I just said! It drugged me, dammit!"  
  
"Hey Van," Jacob says, "what exactly did you do at the Mall of America again?"  
  
"I -- what? Nothing, I watched movies and shit!"  
  
"Mhm. And you didn't try to sleep with everyone at the bar?"  
  
I flush again. So cuz I don't want some girl hitting on us, our surrogate daughter, and the chick I like all at the same time, I'm suddenly getting ganged up on. Or cuz I almost got date-raped by a monster, or tried to pick up girls at a literal goddamn pick-up bar, I'm suddenly some kind of whore?  
  
"I've only slept with one person in half a year!" I snap, gesturing at Alexa.  
  
"What about my aunt?" Jacob says.  
  
"The hell are you talking about? Who's your aunt?!"  
  
"Our family lawyer? Lillith Reuben?"  
  
"Well I -- I forgot about her, and she's not even your aunt anyway!"  
  
"No, but she might as well be."  
  
I almost point out Jacob even knew about the bar because he was there too, and he spent the week straight with a stranger who looked like his ex. But since I have some goddamn decency I'm not the one airing out everyone's dirty laundry here. I don't need this. I feel humiliated.  
  
I get up and storm out.  
  
\---  
  
We keep traveling south through Florida. Alexa's with us now, healing up pretty quickly. She doesn't do the life-steal thing again. I'd let her if she asked, but I'm not gonna offer if she doesn't.  
  
Nobody brings up that scene from when Alexa showed up, so, good, I guess.  
  
I keep having bad dreams. Not because of Lark. November 10th hits, with a doozy the night before.  
  
I'm in my old house, I think, the old-old one before I moved in with my grandparents. It's this huge family gathering going on, people and their kids all over the place, it's all warm and cozy, like a Norman Rockwell painting. I don't recognize anybody, but I know, in the way you know shit in dreams automatically, that they're all Renards.  
  
I see my dad there, and he's older, cuz it's present-day instead of way back when. I get all giddy thinking, 'Hey, he didn't die,' but he doesn't notice me in the crowd. The crowd doesn't notice me either. Not that they can't, they just don't want to, like I'm some awkward party-crasher at a function nobody wants me at.  
  
Everybody starts to sit down and then I smell food outta the kitchen. I notice one seat's still empty, so I try to sit and my dad yanks it away, glares right at me and tells me I'm not supposed to be here. I finally lose my shit and tell him off for being so rude on Whatever-Holiday-This-Is, and I'm like, "You got an empty seat, so what the hell?"  
  
"It's not for you."  
  
"Then who's it for?"  
  
I know the answer as soon as I ask, though, and I cover my ears before I can hear him say it.  
  
That's the happy version of the universe, I guess. The one without me in it.  
  
I wake up in a cold sweat, feeling sick. God I hope my dreams are just brain babble, not signs of anything real. I can handle my own dumb brain kicking me in the ego, I dunno if I can handle Fate doing it.  
  
Everybody else is already awake. Rune's hovering over me in seconds. "Hey Van! What do you wanna do for your birthday?"  
  
"Uhhh. I didn't. Expect you to remember."  
  
"You wanna go out to eat?"  
  
"Um. I. Guess. We can. Shouldn't we, uh, be going south?"  
  
"We have time. How old are you now?"  
  
"Depends on how you look at it. Fifty-six chronologically, twenty-one spent alive," I say.  
  
Khulan gives me a weird look. "How the hell does that work?"  
  
"Magic."  
  
I shower and get dressed, and we all get into Jacob's car, even Khulan. I wonder why she's not on her bike this time, and then I remember something I meant to say earlier.  
  
"Oh, hey. If you wanna take Rune around on your motorcycle again, get her a helmet first."  
  
"With what money?" Khulan says.  
  
"I'll give you the money if you need it."  
  
Jacob looks at me. "You mean you'll give her my money?"  
  
"I still have cash leftover from the werewolf bar."  
  
"You still have that?! How?!"  
  
"I'm thrifty, remember?"  
  
Rune suggests I have martinis or something now that I'm 21. Which is really silly, since I'm not only not 21, but I have already gone drinking in the past. And she and Khulan can't drink, legally. I also mention I don't like alcohol or getting drunk.  
  
While we're going over ideas of where to go and what to do, Jacob pulls in and parks somewhere. "We're here."  
  
I look up. We're at a roller disco. I do a triple-combo gasp, laugh, and embarrassed hiding of my face. It's been ages.  
  
"Well? You wanna go in?" he asks.  
  
"...Yes," I say from behind my hands.  
  
"I've never gone roller skating before," Rune says.  
  
"Oh --" I drop my hands to turn and look at her. "I can teach you!"  
  
Khulan instantly says, "I can teach you."  
  
Rune says yes to Khulan without looking at me. Okay then.  
  
We all go in, pick our skates. Well, I get roller blades, because duh, I'm good at this. Other than kicking ass, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's dancing. Any which way, on my feet, in skates, in ice skates, whatever. If I hadn't been terminally ill before, I probably woulda gone into pro dancing somehow. Oh well.  
  
Jacob's not bad at it either. Khulan's okay. Rune keeps falling on her ass. Alexa's sitting on the sidelines. I go ask her if she feels up to trying it out. She says she's healed enough, but she's never done it before. I offer to teach her. She accepts. I guess it's not so bad Rune let Khulan teach her. It freed me up.  
  
It's pretty much just us here, except the staff. I suspect Jacob rented it out. I refuse to believe roller discos are this dead, even nowadays.  
  
We all take turns putting in song requests. Lots of actual disco, other good oldies, as there should be. ABBA, Jackson, Queen, Prince, Lauper. Newer pop, too. Marina, Gaga, Jepson, others I don't recognize. All the good shit. Jams you can actually dance to.  
  
I gotta take a breather eventually though. I go sit down with Alexa.  
  
"Having fun?" I ask.  
  
"Yeah. I'm actually enjoying myself," she says.  
  
"Cool. Uh. Good. I hope it's not, uh. Too much. I don't know. I didn't know they were gonna do this. I don't, usually, uh. I'm not a big birthday person."  
  
"It's fine. I'm just not used to being around people this much. I'm more of a lone wolf type."  
  
"I was... kinda worried you, uh... didn't really wanna talk to me anymore. After before. You disappeared without saying anything."  
  
"No, I was just -- I didn't want to kill that dragon. And I was forced into killing one of my own, basically, by Lark. But then you invited me back to your room and that was a nice --" Alexa looks embarrassed. "I felt like a pretty shitty person though, and I didn't want to be around anyone after that, so I just left. But I guess that was pretty shitty of me too."  
  
I shrug. "It's fine. I get it."  
  
"When I say I'm a lone wolf type, it's not really by choice, even if it seems like it. People tend to not like me. I'm not a great person. I used to be a dragon, and now I'm a lich. Most people either don't believe it, or they aren't okay with it, even if they're people like us who know about magic and monsters."  
  
"I used to be a vampire. I have literally no room to judge."  
  
"I guess not. I was wondering about that though. How did you become human again?" she asks.  
  
"Marcus did it. With like, holy magic, of some god, whatever. So, you remember that, um, spider-monster we mentioned earlier? That was an arachnoid, they got me with that trippy venom, I was all drugged out. Anyway, Marcus was -- Hm."  
  
A weird thought occurs to me. I pull out my phone and text Jacob: "Did you give Marcus my room key before?"  
  
I see Jacob check his phone and slowly roll to a stop on the rink. He gives me a funny look and texts back, "No."  
  
I put my phone away and look at Alexa. "Okay, well. Marcus broke into my room apparently, 'cause nobody let him in. And he just sat there watching me sleep for who knows how long? Anyway, then I woke up, he started lecturing me about religion, blah blah, long story short he just ranted at me about how much I suck and he hates me, I yell at him to get the fuck out, he starts to leave, then he stops and he goes, 'Hey gimme your hand'."  
  
Fresh anger buzzes through me when I recall the story. "So I think maybe he's just offering his hand in a truce. I don't know. So I let him take my hand, and then boom, suddenly I'm human and it feels awful, and he just starts yelling Bible quotes at me and says, 'I'm not sorry,' in that stupid, smug way he had about everything."  
  
I huff angrily. "So we kicked him out and drove off. And that's that."  
  
"Wow. That explains why he's not in the group anymore."  
  
"Yeah." I let out a breath, let myself relax again. "Now I gotta find Cain to turn me back. Nobody else can do it. Not even my sire."  
  
"Cain?"  
  
"The first vampire. Yeah. That's how we know he's still around. Somewhere. Rune learned it in a vision."  
  
"If you... want any help with that, I'd be happy to help," Alexa says.  
  
"Thanks." I look over at her. "You don't... mind that I'm human right now?"  
  
"Why would I mind?"  
  
"Just, I dunno. I'm not immortal and stuff like you anymore."  
  
"Whether you're a human or a vampire, I don't mind either way," she says. She looks at me and... keeps looking at me, holding her gaze at me, and looks like she's just about to ask something -- and Rune suddenly skates up to us.  
  
We both sit up straighter. "Hey," I say.  
  
"Hey," Rune says. "Happy Birthday."  
  
She holds out a little gift-wrapped box. The paper has little bats on it. I get an embarrassed grin. Hard to explain the exact cross-section of the Venn diagram where 'I'm super embarrassed about getting gifts or compliments or attention,' and, 'I'm super grateful and happy to get any of that' overlap. But I'm right there.  
  
I tear open the gift. There's a little disco ball keychain inside, with a button on it.  
  
"Press it!" Rune says.  
  
I do. It starts playing music. I recognize the opening guitar riff of ABBA's Voulez-Vous instantly. It's my favorite song. I give another embarrassed-happy laugh and hide my face in my hand.  
  
"I love it. It's awesome, thank you."  
  
She skates off and back again to bring us milkshakes.  
  
"Thanks," I say. "I mean, for... all of this. I'm not, um -- This is like, the first birthday gift and party I've gotten for, uh, a pretty long time."  
  
"Yeah," Rune says, "I understand. I know how it is."  
  
"Ahhh... Well... Mmm. Probably not for the same reasons."  
  
"I pretty much stopped having birthdays after Silas... disappeared."  
  
Ow. Close. "Yeah, something like that," I mutter.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
I really don't wanna ruin this. "I... um... Not important. It's fine. I'll tell you later. On another day. Don't worry about it."  
  
She looks a little awkward, disappointed, and sad. "Okay."  
  
"Don't worry about it, honest. It's fine. I'm really -- I appreciate this a lot. It means a lot to me."  
  
Everyone takes a break from skating to have milkshakes and cake. They sing Happy Birthday to my increasing embarrassment. I actually take some time to think about what I want to wish for before blowing the candles out. Who knows if there's real magic in stuff like that, right?  
  
In the background I realize that the same Tom Jones song's been playing way longer than normal, so one of them put it on repeat, apparently.  
  
"Okay, I'm all danced out," I say when it loops another time or two. I find out later it's a prank taken from a stand-up routine.  
  
We get back to the hotel. I approach Alexa to talk to her away from the group. We both sort of awkwardly ask each other if we wanna get a room together. We head off to book a room for the two of us. I warn her she has to... go a little easier on me this time, because I'm a mere mortal now. After a couple rounds I get around to asking if she could demonstrate that shapeshifting magic. Special birthday request.  
  
Hey, don't judge me. As a lesbian, my chances of ever encountering an actual dick, while not zero, are pretty low. I'm curious, okay?  
  
It's a pretty good birthday overall. Best one I've ever had.


	14. The Love Boat

  
The day after my birthday, we meet up with Silas Vallens. We introduce him to Khulan and Alexa. Rune keeps calling him by name, instead of 'Dad', so I assume she's still mad at him for leaving the first time, even though she's calling him up for help. Kids.  
  
We tell Silas what we know about the demon possessing Adrian, which we kinda half-seriously call Bobdrian now thanks to me. It just seems rude to call the monster possessing you by your name, right? We know they have different names. They just won't share.  
  
Silas has bad news about demons though. To start: There are billions of 'em. Hell's totally chock-full of demons. Each strata has a different set of powers and weaknesses, and ways to exorcise them.  
  
Part of the problem's that Adrian's got these extra magic seals on his ankles and wrists, which keep Bobdrian bound inside him. Lopping off his limbs would technically solve the problem. For ten seconds. And then he'd die, because his body's still mortal. Even if we were forced to kill him, it wouldn't help. The demon would jump to a new host anyway.  
  
So the top, or near the top, strata of demons are the Princes of Hell. They're the rulers of various layers of Hell, commanders, war generals of the Endless Hordes. Turns out Adrian is a Prince of Hell. Great!  
  
Jacob tells us a unique fact. Bobdrian's pupils look like keyholes now. The way to destroy the demon for good while ihe's possessing someone is to discover his true name, forge a key inscribed with it, and stab him in the eye with it. If we only exorcise him, he can escape to possess again.  
  
And that's on top of the whole issue of summoning him, holding him long enough to do any other rituals, and not letting him blow us all up or leave any burning craters in the general area.  
  
I miss werewolves. Wolves are easy. You kick the door in, you shoot them with silver bullets. These days every new monster has ten steps of extra bullshit and lots of calamity and collateral damage to worry about.  
  
All demons are weak to holy stuff, no matter the rank, at least. We talk about putting holy water in the water pistols again. Maybe buying gallons or drums of water, getting it all blessed together, having Jacob use it to freeze Bobdrian in place. We can still try to kick the demon out, even if we can't destroy it.  
  
Rune's stuck on this plan. Says she's not gonna get on that boat. The only way to keep from getting on it is if we exorcise the demon first. Then nobody's threatening to kill us if we don't comply.  
  
She thinks that maybe the special cargo Bobdrian wants to ensure gets to the Bermuda Triangle is her -- maybe he's working for Lark, or something, trying to lure her off somewhere.  
  
Except there's still something that might kill everyone on that ship if we don't. We gotta deal with it somehow.  
  
If it's the kraken, which it probably is, that's not ideal. Probably another Lark trap, to trick us into killing one of his essence vessels. So we try going over kraken strategies.  
  
Every story we've heard of people surviving kraken attacks at sea had a lightning storm involved somehow. So lightning's probably its weakness. Good thing we have a couple of lightning-flingers on the team now.  
  
Too bad we only have three days left to plan and prepare.  
  
Rune stays up all night, chugging coffee and researching on her laptop. She passes out the next day. She's still out by morning. I decide that's a good time to do something else I wanna get outta the way before things get seriously underway.  
  
I pull Jacob aside first. "Hey, so. We should have a talk with Khulan. About her and Rune."  
  
"Should we maybe bring Silas along for that? He is her real father," Jacob says.  
  
"Yeah, I know. Technically. We can? But I feel like he's gonna be trying so hard to make amends with her for leaving, that he'll just be chill and let her do whatever she wants, to be the 'cool' parent, and we can't have a divided front."  
  
"Fair, fair."  
  
"Anyway, Rune's out cold, so now's our chance without having her listening in on the other side of the door." Which I know she'd totally do, on account of seeing her doing it. Because I was also doing it, at the same door, at the same time. I don't mention that part.  
  
We beckon Khulan outside with us. We face her side-by-side.  
  
"So, Khulan," Jacob starts.  
  
I say, "What are your intentions with our daughter?"  
  
"Jesus, Van. Just going to open with that?"  
  
Khulan looks at us funny. "I dunno."  
  
I ask, "Well, do ya like her?"  
  
"Sure? I guess?"  
  
"Okay. Well. If you do, then you gotta treat her respectfully. And it's disrespectful to go around winking and hitting on everyone else in the same room as her. It, like, cheapens the gesture. And it's also weird because we're all basically her family."  
  
"Also literally her family," Jacob points out, "in Silas's case."  
  
"Also that."  
  
"I -- Okay. Is that all you wanted to say?"  
  
"No. Look. I don't care if you date her or whatever. But you can't go sleeping around on her behind her back if you do. Don't just use her up and break her heart. Ya can't just hit it and quit it."  
  
Jacob stares at me. "Jesus, Vanessa!"  
  
Khulan looks super uncomfortable. Good. She mutters some awkward agreements.  
  
"Hey," I say, "this is like, a rite of passage. I had to sit through my grandparents' lecture about not letting boys get fresh with me. So it's only fair to pass it along."  
  
Jacob says, "I'm sorry, did you just say 'get fresh with you'? God, you really are old."  
  
I continue, "Also, I don't care if you drink, but don't try to push any drugs or alcohol on her. And don't let her get on your bike without both of you wearing helmets. Got it?"  
  
"Yeah, I got it," Khulan says. "Can I go now?"  
  
"Look, what Van's trying to say in the most blunt and awkward way possible," Jacob says, "is that we've come to care for Rune a great deal. Also, I don't care what Van says about being fine with you dating Rune, because aren't you an adult? That's not cool."  
  
"I'm eighteen."  
  
"She's only sixteen. So that's just not going to happen for another couple years. How could you be okay with this, Van?"  
  
"I mean, I didn't know how old Khulan was," I say. "They both look like kids to me. But that's not like, a huge age difference anyway."  
  
"That's still an adult and a minor."  
  
"I gueeess."  
  
"Now can I go?" Khulan says.  
  
I give her the I've-got-my-eyes-on-you gesture as she leaves.  
  
Once Rune gets her full sleep, we all go find an abandoned warehouse to set up in. We don't know Bobdrian's true name, so the key idea's a bust. We wanna exorcise him, get Adrian away safely, and kill the demon before it jumps to a new host. I guess! Just casually trying to tackle a Prince of Hell without even knowing his name.  
  
I, Alexa, Silas, and Khulan all stand ready to non-lethally subdue Adrian. Jacob inscribes a complicated summoning circle on the floor while Rune watches. He chants in a mystical language. Nothing happens. He repeats the chant. Like an unfunny version of the Tom Jones prank, at first I just think it's a long chant that loops once or twice, and then I realize he's just repeating the same thing over and over again.  
  
I lean over to Silas and whisper, "Is he supposed to be repeating it? Does it make it stronger if he does?"  
  
Silas shakes his head.  
  
Jacob steps back, looking cold and furious. "It didn't work," he snaps, and storms off.  
  
Rune goes to the circle. She does the chant. She tries a few times. Nothing every time. She yells, chucks her bat at the floor, sinks down and hugs her knees.  
  
Everyone looks around awkwardly at everyone else. I make eye contact with Khulan, nod at Rune. Khulan goes over to comfort her. Alexa and I go look for Jacob. For one, letting anyone wander off alone seems like a bad idea when you rang a demon's bell like twenty times in a row just now. For two, we gotta know why it didn't work. Big difference between a declined invite, and a full failure to RSVP.  
  
We find Jacob in an empty parking lot out back behind a business. He's surrounded by ice sculptures, screaming at them, and then shattering them and making a new one to replace it.  
  
"After the hell you put me through, and you don't even have the decency to answer me?! Every time you've hunted me down, and the one time I call you first you fucking ignore me?!" he yells. I realize the ice statues are all Adrians.  
  
I usher Alexa back around the corner. "We'll talk to him later," I whisper. And then I step on a chunk of ice with a loud crunch. We freeze (not literally).  
  
"Who's there?" Jacob shouts. "Come out already. I'm not in the mood for games."  
  
I step out and wave awkwardly. "Um. Hey."  
  
He glares at me. "Oh, you choose now, huh? You must be really bored to keep goading me like this. You're fucking pathetic, living off others' fear like this."  
  
"Er... what? I don't -- We were just leaving."  
  
"'We'?"  
  
Alexa steps out. Jacob looks confused, and then sighs. The ice sculptures slough away as his shoulders sink. He musta thought I was Bobdrian or Lark in disguise. Jacob walks past us, down the street. I almost let him go. I call out after a few seconds of not wanting to.  
  
"Hey, wait. Um. Why didn't it work?" I ask.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"I mean, like. Is he actually ignoring us, or is he trapped somewhere, or... dead?"  
  
"He's not dead," Jacob says. "The summoning spell worked. The call went through, so to speak. It just didn't get anything back. It wouldn't have gone through at all, if the target didn't exist anymore."  
  
"Okay. Well. Good to know."  
  
There's nothing else to say, so we just keep going our separate ways. Plan A failed, so Plan B's back in the queue. We'll have to get on that ship and battle a kraken.  
  
\---  
  
Cape Canaveral, Florida. November 14. The day of departure.  
  
Silas sees Rune's new tattoo for the first time, one of the rare times she takes off her hoodie. He looks surprised at her, looks questioningly at me and Jacob. We give him a silent look that says, "Yeah, so? Waddya gonna do about it?" which he answers silently back with, "Nothing," by doing just that. Letting a guy's kid get inked in the few-week span he was gone is some sorta power move. We have no regrets.  
  
Rune's just been moping around lately. She was hard-set on saving Adrian. Her mood's way too flexible, takes hits too hard. Like a memory foam mattress. Every little weight puts a new dent in her, and she takes forever to bounce back to normal.  
  
We have some time until we leave. The group's milling around wondering if there's anything else we can tie up or take care of before we ship off.  
  
Jacob looks at me and Alexa. "Van, don't you want to maybe spend some more time alone with your girlfriend?"  
  
I cough and flush. The two of us have been spending time together -- we've been rooming alone for the past few days. And she's been forced to borrow my clothes, which everyone else has snickered about. It's weirdly pleasing and almost more intimate than the sex itself. But we also haven't had anything close to a conversation about putting the Relationship stamp on whatever this is.  
  
Alexa and I stare at each other and Jacob awkwardly. I'd feel kinda guilty trying to force her into dating me just because she dropped on our doorstep with nowhere else to go. I kinda figured once she healed up, once we got the Lark threat taken care of, she'd move on again. I am not exactly anybody's anchor to hang around... anywhere. Ever.  
  
"Um," I say.  
  
"Well?" Jacob says.  
  
"I mean. Uh. We haven't -- I -- That hasn't been, uh, I don't know if..."  
  
He glares, outta nowhere, and just starts shouting angrily. "Why don't you two just fucking talk to each other?!"  
  
I'm taken aback, cuz not only does Jacob rarely ever get mad enough to yell about anything, but he's never done it to me, and there wasn't any build-up here, he just snaps. I don't say anything at first, too shocked, and he keeps yelling and cursing at me, and I just don't know what to do with this. Everyone else looks pretty awkward about it too, pretending they're not here.  
  
"What?" I finally say.  
  
"What the fuck do you mean, 'What'? Did I fucking stutter?!"  
  
"I just --"  
  
"Do you like her or not?!"  
  
"I -- I mean, y-yeah, but --"  
  
"Then are you her fucking girlfriend or not?!"  
  
I don't know what's going on, and I really don't wanna have this happening, whatever the hell it is, in front of the whole group.  
  
"I'm... just... gonna go," I say, and hurry off with Alexa.  
  
The two of us end up walking around town aimlessly. Nice view of the beach here.  
  
"Sorry about... that," I say. "I don't know what, um, yeah. I didn't know he'd put us on the spot like that."  
  
"So you like me, huh?" she says.  
  
"...Yeah."  
  
"I like you too."  
  
I grin. "Cool."  
  
"So are we girlfriends?"  
  
"I dunno. If you wanna be. I don't wanna force you. I know it's um. Really kinda soon," I say. "I don't wanna rush you into things if you don't want."  
  
"I wouldn't mind. Is it too soon? I've never done the relationship thing before, so this is all new to me," she says.  
  
"Oh, no, I mean, it's -- I wouldn't mind either. If you don't."  
  
"So we're girlfriends now?"  
  
I'm trying not to grin again. "Sounds groovy."  
  
After a little while, I say, "Hey, so. You said to wait until you were all recovered and stuff to ask. Why did you become human?"  
  
"Oh. Yeah. That. I did say that, didn't I?" she says. "I don't really tell most people because it doesn't put me in the best light. The thing is, as a dragon, I was essentially the runt of the litter. For a dragon I wasn't all that big or strong. So I sought power in other ways, through magic. At the time, becoming a human was just another way to gain more power."  
  
"Aren't dragons already pretty powerful magically, though?" I say. "I thought turning human would downgrade you."  
  
"Yes and no. Humans have a special aptitude for learning magic, and with the magic I already knew, becoming human amplified the powers I already had. That and dragons are not very social creatures. They tend to live solo, and when they do run into each other, they tend to not get along. Being human lets me... avoid dealing with my own kind."  
  
And among humans, she's a powerhouse by comparison. I can relate to enjoying that.  
  
"Again, no judgment from me here," I say. "Since I'm basically doing the same thing except in the opposite direction. Trying to become not-human to become immortal and powerful."  
  
We head back to the motel, to get some last-minute sex in for the day. Who knows if everything on the boat will go to shit as soon as it leaves port? Sex does not take up the whole rest of the wait time though. Afterward, with my nerves nicely settled, I decide it's a good time to take care of another conversation.  
  
I go to the other room, go up to Jacob, sitting in the chair looking at stuff on his phone.  
  
I say, "Hey."  
  
He looks up at me. "Yes?"  
  
"Are you mad at me?"  
  
Everyone else not-so-secretly looks our way. Jacob asks me to come outside to talk alone. We go out to sit in the car. All our important talks happen in or on this car.  
  
"I'm not mad at you," he says.  
  
"Really? It kinda seems like you are. Or at least that you were."  
  
"No, that's not it. It's..." He sighs. "I didn't want to see you wasting an opportunity, choosing not to talk when you could just as easily choose happiness."  
  
"Well, you kinda blew up at me, and put me on the spot in front of everyone outta nowhere," I say. I also think to myself, this is why we took Khulan outside to talk about her feelings, not yelling at her in front of Rune about 'em.  
  
"I guess I did kinda do that. Sorry about that," Jacob says.  
  
Good enough for me. "Thanks. It's fine."  
  
"Van, did I ever tell you about how things were when I first met Adrian?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I realized I was in love with him when he was dating my best friend. That vampire I mentioned hunting with before. Anabelle. And I kept quiet about my feelings, and it was hell, feeling the way I did for him and doing nothing about it. And then she... died, and that's when I moved in, like a vulture just waiting for its prey."  
  
Well that took a turn.  
  
He goes on, "I never truly felt like I deserved him. Like I deserved to be happy. I still don't."  
  
"Uhh. Well. That's. A lot," I say. "I don't believe that you don't deserve happiness. I think you do deserve it. And like, obviously he does too, because he still got engaged to you and was going to marry you, and he'll probably be fine with marrying you after we get the demon outta him."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"Just, eh. Look. I didn't wanna suddenly start pushing serious talks and feelings on someone I barely know, and risk making her feel awkward or think I'm clingy, and then it backfires and she just runs away. I know how bad I am at talking to people. So I just... don't. And then I don't ruin anything. People don't really... keep me around. Or they don't stick around me. I haven't even had a relationship since a little less than thirty years ago."  
  
"Because you're -- were a vampire?"  
  
"I mean, that was the base, core issue. I guess." I sigh. "My girlfriend Cara was moving upwards. Corporate climbing. Doing well for herself. I was just. A liability. She had plans for the future and her life and everything, and in the end those plans didn't include me. So, I dunno, it's better to not try to force it, and I just try to be as useful and stuff as I can, so people don't have a reason to leave me behind. I guess."  
  
"Well, did you and Alexa talk things out?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"And?"  
  
"We're girlfriends now."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
"For what? Being a dick about it?"  
  
"For giving you the push you needed," he says.  
  
"Uh, no. It coulda happened on its own eventually. Also: You were a huge dick about it. You could have just as easily given us that push in, like, private, and not yelling and swearing, and generally not being a total asshole. Just saying."  
  
"Hmm. Nope. I don't think so, actually."  
  
I laugh a little. "No, too late. You already said you were sorry. You accepted it."  
  
"I don't remember."  
  
"Mmmhm."  
  
After a few moments he says, "So, I was going to give this to you on your birthday, but I forgot, so now seems like a good time."  
  
He reaches back, pulls out a little box. I unwrap and open it. It's like a jewelry box except instead of a pair of earrings it's a set of tacky fake vampire teeth from a Halloween store. I laugh.  
  
"I know it's not exactly getting you back your vampirism," he says, "but hopefully this is close enough to tide you over. Also, they glow in the dark."  
  
"They're perfect," I laugh. "Thank you."  
  
"Check the bottom of the box, too."  
  
I lift up the faux-velvet cardboard. There's a ring underneath. Nothing special looking, no gems or anything.  
  
"That's for you and Alexa," he says.  
  
I stare at it. "Uhhh. I'm sorry, are you trying to make me propose to her now?"  
  
"No, no. It's a magic ring."  
  
"What kinda magic?"  
  
"Well, you see, Van," he says. "There are certain types of spells and enchantments in the world, which can selectively alter specific parts of the body, and can be used to --"  
  
By now I'm already leaning an elbow on the dashboard, chin on my knuckles, giving him a big smug and amused grin. "Oh, do tell, Jacob."  
  
"Oh fuck me, you've already done it, haven't you?"  
  
"SHE did. She's the one who can shapeshift."  
  
"And you were just going to let me give you the magic sex talk. Letting me go on like an idiot."  
  
"I didn't want to interrupt." I'm still smirking.  
  
"So you've been dicked down. Well, now you can dick your girlfriend down. Or dick down anyone you ever want to," he says.  
  
I laugh, turning red now. "Jesus, Jacob. Do you have to say it like that? Okay, my turn to make you feel awkward. Ever been dicked down as a chick?"  
  
"A-duh. Next question."  
  
"Do I have to use contraceptives with this thing? 'Cause uh, with her, uh, her shapeshifting is -- It's not a problem there. What about here? Do we gotta call up your family doctor again and get me on birth control? Or her? Both of us?"  
  
"Ugh, gross, no. It's perfectly safe."  
  
Psh, pills are gross? Boys. I don't even mention condoms. Not like I've never used those. It keeps shit cleaner longer.  
  
Instead I ask, "If we ever... actually wanted to, though... is that possible?"  
  
"It would take a different spell for that. Different magic. Why, do you?" he asks.  
  
"I mean. I dunno. Maybe. Eventually, someday? I haven't..." I start to say.  
  
I lean back. I put the fangs and ring back in the box, put the box in my pocket. "I never seriously thought about it. Not biological kids, anyway. For like. A few reasons. For one, y'know, gay. So not likely. Except before I even knew I was gay, I was just super sick and dying instead, so there's that. Even if I could survive -- eh, well, I figured it'd be a travesty to pass on all my bad blood to some poor kid. It wasn't that I never wanted any. That was actually part of the problem with Cara."  
  
"She didn't?"  
  
"No. She did. That was the problem. I mean there was legal problems back then, gay adoption in the '80s and all that, but, uh. She said I wasn't safe. Couldn't be trusted around kids. So yeah. I never... I've never hurt a kid, but... not like she was wrong."  
  
"Oh. Ouch."  
  
I shrug. "It was never an option. And now it is? I still haven't really thought about it. And, uh, honestly, I already feel all parent-like to Rune, so..."  
  
Another one of those 'don't talk about those feelings or you'll ruin it' things, in my head. She's got a bad track record with parents. I only met her this year. There's no way I'd say that stuff to her directly. She'd just freak out and run off.  
  
I change the subject. "Do you think I should become a vampire again?"  
  
"I think that's your decision to make."  
  
"That's not what I asked. I wanna know what you think about it."  
  
Jacob doesn't answer right away. "I think you would ultimately be happier as a human. You don't know if you'll have to start back at square one in controlling your hunger. You were feral for a while at first, yes?"  
  
"Yeah. My sire sent my grandparents to a hotel for a week to make sure I didn't eat them..." I say.  
  
"And that feral period might last longer or be harder to control if you're a second-generation vampire, sired by the first ever vampire. And you could be more powerful in ways that might make it difficult for us to contain you."  
  
"And I don't want to hurt either of -- any of you," I say. "The last thing I want is to go psycho-killer like some Bloodrager type and have to be put down."  
  
"Hey!" he says defensively. "You remember the fact that Anabelle was a Bloodrager?"  
  
"Yeah, so am I wrong?"  
  
He sighs and looks down. "No."  
  
"If I go through with trying to find Cain, are you gonna try to stop me?" I ask.  
  
"No. Like I said, it's your decision. Whatever you decide, I'll help you," he says. "There are just... other things to consider. You're not helpless as a human. You took out Nick with one shot. You know magic now. This is always going to be a dangerous life, vampire or not. And... I don't want you to have to outlive all of us. Being an immortal means losing everyone you care about sooner or later, whether we die in the line of fire, or of old age."  
  
"I guess. Not like I'm not already used to that by now. I'll just. I'll think about it. Now that I actually have the option." I sigh. "I hate that I didn't really get the option either way, either time."  
  
"I don't agree with... how Marcus went about doing what he did," Jacob says, "but I can understand why he did it."  
  
"Yeah, well. He stole my room key, broke into my room with it, and sat there watching me sleep while I was still drugged from the spider-monster."  
  
"Wait, you didn't let him in?"  
  
"No! I thought you did, but like, apparently nobody even knew he was in there the whole time."  
  
"...Wow Marcus. You're making it really hard to defend you..." Jacob mutters.  
  
"No kidding. Whatever. He's not important anymore. He did it, he's gone, good riddance, now I have to figure out what to do next."  
  
"While we're sharing our honest opinions about people, I'm not the only one who's seriously bothered by how Khulan acts, right?" he says.  
  
"Oh hell no. It bugs the crap outta me. That's why I wanted to talk with her. But like, if they decide to, uh, do anything together, can we really stop them?" I ask.  
  
"Yes? We literally can. We can do that."  
  
"Not if we don't wanna piss off Rune. Not like they can knock each other up, at least. I'd be a lot more bothered if Khulan was a boy. Also because straight boys are just the worst."  
  
"True, true."  
  
"I'm not the only one who feels like Rune's our daughter either, right?" I say.  
  
"No, I thought it was pretty obvious I felt that way too."  
  
"Totally not how I thought I'd end up with a kid."  
  
"What, you mean, running into a teenage runaway while on the road hunting monsters? You didn't expect that when you were younger?" Jacob says with fake shock.  
  
"Somehow, no, it never crossed my mind when I was thinking about my future." I pause a few moments. "I really do mean it when I say thank you. For the birthday stuff. I'm not used to it? I never did birthdays before, so. Yeah. Oh, hey, uh, speaking of family and stuff, did I ever show you the photo of my parents?"  
  
It's a rhetorical question. I already have my wallet out. I pull out their photo. Black and white newsprint, laminated, announcing the Yıldırım-Renard wedding in 1960. I show it to him.  
  
"Wow," Jacob says. "They're so good-looking, what happened to that?"  
  
"What... happened to them?"  
  
"I meant their good looks. I was trying to make a joke at your expense." He huffs and hands the picture back.  
  
"Oh. Ha, ha," I say flatly. I don't put it away yet. I keep lookin' at it. "I went back to my hometown once. Some time after my grandparents died. When I left New York. Looked up old records. Made a copy. It's the only thing I... have. From before. My sire kinda made off with everything."  
  
"And you're legally dead."  
  
"Oh no. I'm not. I'm legally missing. So, y'know, if I could prove it was me... it still wouldn't matter because I was never in my grandparents' will. My sire, uh, tricked my grandparents into giving him power of attorney, after my dad died, just in case anything happened to them too. And with me being sick, and, yeah. He was all, 'Oh, you don't want poor Vanessa to end up in an orphanage and the state taking everything. Better let me hold your assets for ya.' And they just kinda. Forgot to change that. And then died."  
  
"Your sire's really a dick."  
  
"Yeah. I mean. He watched over the family for generations, since way back in medieval times or whatever. Kept a distance, watching from afar, moving money, gathering money, bankrolling us. Kept any enemies away, anyone who might hurt us. Bribes, extortion, threats, probably murder? I didn't really ask questions..."  
  
"And your grandparents trusted him?"  
  
"He acted perfectly nice and charming to the Renards. And to most people in general. To most people he's just a nice, little old man, who happens to be super-rich. He just happens to only help out people if he gets something out of it. Like more money. Or blood."  
  
"But he sired you," Jacob says, "to get your inheritance?"  
  
"Oh, no. I was... just not useful any other way. He kept me alive as long as possible. Medical bills and stuff. And then he turned me, to save me, once everything started to crash all at once. Like, 'going to die in a week' levels of bad. And then he taught me the ropes on being a vampire."  
  
"Doesn't everyone in your hometown think you're dead, then?"  
  
"Nope. I stuck around town for a little while. And then he gave me a Greyhound ticket to New York and... told me to go see the world, take a vacation, enjoy my new un-life..."  
  
Jacob looks at me incredulously. "And it didn't occur to you that he was just obviously getting rid of you so he could make off with your family fortune? Are you just naturally way too trusting of everyone, or...?"  
  
"Oh sure, it's obvious in retrospect, but you never met him," I say. "But yeah I'm probably way too trusting. I just take people at face value. I can't be constantly paranoid about everyone having ulterior motives."  
  
"You probably should be. Especially in our line of work."  
  
"Yeaaah..."  
  
"Anyway, aren't you glad to be a human again and get to enjoy all the human things you didn't get to do before, on account of being dying of everything?" he says.  
  
"I do like eating food. And candy. And having milkshakes. I don't like the having-to-sleep part, though. Especially nightmares, don't miss those." I still have the photo in my hands. I turn it over and over, staring down at it. "Especially this month. The one I had on my birthday was a real helluva doozy."  
  
I gear up to tell him, but he talks first. "I think that's enough depressing conversation for one day. Let's go back inside before people think we're dead."  
  
"Oh -- Yeah. Sure. I'll, uh. Tell ya later, or something." I put the photo away. "S'not super important anyway."  
  
"Okay, well if you're going to try to guilt me into it..."  
  
"No, no. I'm not being sarcastic. I just sound like that when I don't mean to. It's fine. Really."  
  
We get outta the car. Probably for the best. I keep dumping some heavy stuff on him, and that one woulda been a whole can of worms and a half. I tell myself I'll get up the gumption to tell him stuff after the cruise, but by the time I'm back in the motel room, I know I won't.  
  
\---  
  
I've never been on a boat before. Not even a row-boat. The cruise liner is one of the biggest things I've ever seen. It's like a whole skyscraper put on its side. Like a small city on the water. Makes the other ships in port look like tiny specks.  
  
We have our fake I.D.s ready. We only have four tickets, so Silas and Alexa sneak on-board with magic, with all our weapons and other crap security probably wouldn't let us bring.  
  
I'm floored. There's like a dozen decks, a bajillion pools and a miniature waterpark. The atrium's ritzier than the ritziest hotel lobbies I've ever seen. Ten stories high and open air, wraparound mezzanines, everything's all golden, crystal chandeliers, palm trees, red carpet, glass elevators going all the way up.  
  
Our cabins are equally ritzy, with ocean-view windows. I look over maps and brochures. There's like, five restaurants, a cafe, a casino, a huge auditorium for live bands and musical productions. I vow to have as much fun as possible before the kraken shows up. I am NOT wasting this.  
  
The group agrees to take watch shifts. One person always on deck, keeping an eye out. Rune just ends up sitting on the sofa in her suite, moping too hard to move. Khulan tries to cheer her up, it doesn't do any good, but she at least makes sure Rune still showers and eats.  
  
I hit up the gift shop and buy some aloha shirts, because I'm just that gay. I wear 'em around for some of the fun stuff, and switch to my suit for the fancier stuff. I remember I still have that black mini-dress too, so I throw it on to see how Alexa reacts. She pounces to give me a ravishing before I even get to the door. At least SOMEone appreciates this dress.  
  
One night I throw on the glow-in-the-dark fangs and whip around dramatically with a, "I vaaant to suck joourr cleeet!" which makes her laugh so hard she falls off the bed. I also consider that a successful reaction, but I don't do it again. I DO get around to mentioning the ring though, which gets a completely different but still successful reaction.  
  
Most of the (public) fun stuff is dancing -- there's a night club and a ballroom. I teach Alexa what I can. I know the basics of fancy-dancing, used to take classes with Cara.  
  
Jacob walks up during one of the formal dances. "Hello there sailor, mind if I cut in?" he says, and brushes Alexa aside without waiting for an answer. She shrugs and goes to sit down. Jacob automatically assumes a following posture. I chuckle and take the lead. If I thought he wasn't a bottom before, this is incontrovertible evidence.  
  
At some point while the group's hanging out in the common room of our suite, Jacob shows up with his sister Jodie. He doesn't look happy. Neither does she, but that's normal for her.  
  
We introduce her to the others (I introduce Alexa as "my girlfriend", which she looks sheepish and happy about). We ask what Jodie's doing here, if she's trying to stop the kraken too. She says no, she and her husband won a sweepstakes, and now they're here on vacation.  
  
"And you didn't think to ask me," Jacob says, "if this cruise you conveniently won tickets for might be the same one we've all been strong-armed by a demon into saving from destruction?"  
  
"Why would I think it was the same one?" Jodie says.  
  
"Why wouldn't you?!"  
  
She wanders off again after we find out nobody else from the family is on board. Except that's not the only other person Jacob knows. It isn't long before he shows up with an acquaintance from his wizard guild. Big bald black guy named Lex Morris, earth-and-stone element wizard. I make a lot of rock puns at his expense. He glares and tells me he's heard them all.  
  
"So you might say by now you're just taking them for granite?"  
  
I am unappreciated in my time.  
  
Morris WAS here to keep an eye out for magical problems. Some kinda premonition that trouble's gonna happen. We tell him about the kraken. He's the only guild wizard here though.  
  
After he leaves, Jacob says it's weird, convenient, and suspicious that somehow wizards of all the basic elements except fire are on board now. He does water and ice, Morris does earth, Jodie does air, Alexa and Rune both do lightning. And Adrian with his fire magic makes it a royal flush, if he's anywhere on board.  
  
There's no trouble for ten days. We've been in international waters for a while by now. You can tell because that's when the casino opened.  
  
On the 24th, in the wee hours of the morning, Jacob calls us into the common room again. Rune had a vision: A fog rolls in, but it's not fog, it's steam, cuz the ocean is boiling as fire rains from mysterious lights in the sky. The kraken appears in the water just as the whole ship goes up in flames and starts to sink.  
  
Fire, huh? Maybe Bobdrian shows up to tag-team us with the kraken. Or maybe krakens just have fire powers now.  
  
We all go top-side and see fog and clouds rolling in. The water's churning big-time off starboard. Some of us run to get our weapons. Rune runs up to the bridge to talk the helmsman into changing course. Civilian passengers run away to hide below deck. Jodie and Morris stay above.  
  
We start to veer away from the churning, but it doesn't matter soon, cuz now there's lights flashing in the clouds off port. It's not lightning, there's no thunder.  
  
I get to the highest deck as fast as possible with my sniper rifle. Everyone gets into positions around the deck, including Rune with her bat. The water churns harder, the lights get closer.  
  
A single eye as big as a house erupts from the water like a small island. Huge tentacles make their own tidal waves as they whip up and start slamming across the ship. The rest of the party rushes to attack those. I can barely see 'em from here, I just see lightning flashes and hear distant gunshots.  
  
The lights in the sky rush toward the ship. I realize they're not a bunch of separate lights moving in a swarm: They're all one, huge, glowing, fiery monster made of pure energy like a miniature sun. It's the phoenix.  
  
I watch its trajectory by the glowing in the clouds. I take a leading shot, hear a huge hawkish cry, and see it fall. It's at least as big as a house, too. It's not dead, just diving. I take another shot as it swoops down, and the next second it's landed on the port side of the hull, crushing the rail with its talons. It beats its wings once, knocking everyone flat with a fiery blast of wind. I get off another shot, and it lunges down to snap me up in its beak.  
  
Alexa makes it up in time to blast it with a lightning bolt from the storm clouds. It drops me, and I switch to using my magic, cuz the bullets aren't doing much here. I siphon off its energy, and it feels like that hot flushed finish from drinking hard liquor, except five times hotter and in my whole body. A lot like getting injected with medical contrast. Disturbing.  
  
Between our magic, and Silas shooting it from below, we kill the phoenix. It screams and dies in a big fiery explosion. Probably not permanently, because phoenixes come back. It's their thing.  
  
Alexa and I find some ropes to rappel down to the main deck where the tentacles are. We jump in to the fight. Khulan's stabbing them, Jacob's freezing chunks solid for Rune to electrocute and shatter with her bat (god, it smells so bad). I run in to help with my magic. Its life essence feels gross and oily, like old fish fillet at a sketchy greasy spoon.  
  
A chunk of tentacle breaks off as it whips away and traps Jacob under it. Meanwhile Silas decides that running out of pistol ammo means he should jump overboard to take on the kraken mano a mano.  
  
I mutter, "Dammit."  
  
Alexa follows him over for some dumb reason.  
  
"Dammit!"  
  
And then Rune, in a flying leap with her bat swinging down from overhead.  
  
"DAMMIT!" Why can't these people stay on the boat where they're supposed to be?  
  
Rune's bat slams right into the middle of its eye. Its remaining tentacles flail around and then go limp, sliding off the deck, and it sinks below the water. Shadowy fluid essence shit starts draining away somewhere. In a last-ditch plan I grab an empty pill bottle from my first aid kid and try to capture some of it. I tape the lid closed and write, "DON'T OPEN! LARK JUICE INSIDE?"  
  
Jacob finally gets out from under the tentacle. We throw down lifesavers and rope ladders for the others. But we don't have time to catch our breath before the phoenix rises from its ashes.  
  
At least this time, everybody can hit it at once, without the kraken distraction. We beat it down in no time, and this time we see that it leaves behind a big smoking egg. Jacob runs over, freezes it solid, and shatters it, making the world's least appealing omelette.  
  
And now we can catch our breaths. I go around doing first aid, starting with Jacob, who got hurt the worst. Khulan patches up Rune and gives her a hug, but Rune's not looking all that comforted. Usually killing monsters feels like a good thing. This time we all feel and know we just got suckered into doing our enemy's dirty work, and he's two steps closer to getting his full power back.  
  
Jacob pulls out a cigarette and tries to light it, which surprise me since I didn't know he smoked. He flicks the lighter a few times, it doesn't work, he curses and throws it away. Rune reaches over and grabs the cigarette.  
  
"Hey! No --" I start to say.  
  
She breaks the cigarette in half.  
  
"Oh. Uh. Nevermind," I say.  
  
Now that all the danger's over, Alexa grabs me and dips me in a kiss. Unlike the others, I'm totally receptive to being cheered up, so she and I go right back to our room. Five minutes later -- as in, long enough to already be naked -- someone knocks on our door. Alexa falls off me, onto the floor, with a loud thunk.  
  
I yell, "What?!"  
  
"We have a situation!" Jacob shouts.  
  
"So do we!"  
  
We groan and grumble, but we get dressed and go out to the others. Everybody's gathered together, including Jodie and Morris.  
  
I ask what's going on. The others say that the crew and passengers are missing. Only the captain's still here, standing at the helm on the bridge, but his eyes are glazed over in a trance. I ask if it's a demonic possession deal, like at the abandoned church in New York. Jacob says those people had pure black eyes, this is different. Even though the captain seems unaware, he can't be moved, stuck in place, and so is the wheel.  
  
I ask if anybody searched the ship. They all say no. We all split up to search every deck, including the cargo hold, just in case they're trapped down there or something. Or dead. But nope, we don't find anyone else, alive or dead, or any signs of a struggle. They just vanished into thin air. Poof.  
  
I get my rifle and go to the highest point again. I scan the horizon with the scope. I see dark peaks ahead, hills and small mountains covered in thick forests, surrounded by a white sand beach, and no signs of civilization.  
  
"Land ho," I mutter.  
  
Apparently, the Bermuda Triangle is its own phenomenon.


	15. Fantasy Island

The ship's about to run aground. The handful of us still on board run to the helm and try in vain to turn the wheel. The captain's stuck fast on it. We can't change course without chopping off his arms, so we're just not changing course. Everybody braces themselves and waits. The ship hits the island, grinds to a halt.  
  
Someone goes down to make sure we didn't break the hull, not taking on water or anything. All clear. So theoretically we could keep sailing... if we could get the wheel to turn. We decide, for now, to go investigate this weird island. Maybe there's a reason we got pulled here. Maybe a puzzle to solve that we gotta fix before it lets us leave. Maybe we'll find Amelia Earhart.  
  
We lower down in lifeboats and go to shore. As we're about to hit the sand, Alexa falls over like she got hit in the face. Which apparently she did, on an invisible magic barrier. It doesn't stop anyone else. I tell her to wait with the boats and shoot up some lightning as a signal if she needs help.  
  
The rest of us all go up together. The time's 4 am, and there's no moon or stars. No breeze or tide either. The water's still as a puddle. Creepy. We wander around the beach for a while. I draw arrows in the sand as we go. No signs of civilization. There's one opening in the treeline to use as a path. After a few minutes, it's still 4 am.  
  
We head into the forest. There's this heavy sense of dread as we go into the treeline. There's no sound. No birds, bugs, wind, nothing. The trees are so thick we can't see the sky. Not that it matters much without any celestial objects to see. We go single file, Khulan at the back, marking Xs on trees. Jacob does a headcount every so often.  
  
We walk for ages. I wonder if this is some feyland thing again, when suddenly Jacob stops the group, says someone's missing. We realize Khulan got separated. We backtrack and look for the Xs. We find the last X, it's pretty close, and we follow them, calling out. We find Khulan eventually, who looks confused.  
  
"Where'd you guys go? I stopped to mark a tree, and I looked up and you were all gone," she says.  
  
"The marks continue on a ways ahead, though," Jacob says, frowning. He looks around the group, does another headcount, frowns more, says now Jodie and Morris are missing.  
  
Well, crap. This place is doing some weird space distortion trick on us. There's no way two people from the very middle of the group could just vanish without being noticed. We all swear we just saw them, we were all looking at them, and then in the blink of an eye... poof. Jacob says there's something suspicious about us getting separated from three elemental casters in a row.  
  
While we're stopped, someone shoots a flare gun. The flare vanishes midair once it clears the canopy. Okay, cool. Might be a dumb risk, but I climb a tree to look around and get some bearings. The canopy just looks the same in every direction. No landmarks except the mountain in the middle. I take out my phone, turn in place to get a video. Time's still 4 am. I call out, "Marco!"  
  
I hear back, "Polo!" in the distance.  
  
It's not Jodie or Morris. It's Rune's voice. I call out again, I get another response, closer this time. We call Marco Polo back and forth for a while, her getting closer and closer, and then she stops responding at all. The whole time, I've heard Rune's voice talking with the others in the group below. I shiver, once.  
  
I ask if anyone else heard that. They all say no. Just me, shouting Marco over and over, nobody replying.  
  
So there's either some will-o-wisp thing out there trying to lure me away with Rune's voice, or the Rune in our party is a fake, a plant. Playing along with us all along. And just like with the shapeshifter back in Vegas, apparently has enough of Rune's memory to play the part pretty well.  
  
I don't think it's a shapeshifter. Could be Lark conjuration bullshit, but doesn't feel like that either. If it's something that can read my mind, or knows my past somehow, then asking for passwords or secret knowledge won't work. I try something else instead.  
  
"Hey Rune, random question, uhh," I call down. "What year did my parents get married?"  
  
"1960," she says.  
  
Which is true. Which is bad, cuz I never told her that. Only Jacob saw that news article in my wallet.  
  
"Hey, Jacob," I call down. "I, um... I got some video from up here. I want you to take a look at it and tell me what you think."  
  
I don't wanna climb down, because I'm apparently experiencing some different, more wide open version of reality up here. Just in case Rune tries to call out again, I'm not leaving my post yet.  
  
I open up a chat window. No service obviously, but doesn't matter. I type, "I don't think that's the real Rune," and toss my phone to Jacob so he can read it. Before I can ask what he thinks, I hear a sudden metal thwack and everyone shouting below in surprise.  
  
"What's going on?" I say. "Guys?"  
  
Nobody replies, there's a scuffle going on. I drop down. Jacob's bleeding from a head wound and Rune's gone. I give him some first aid, get my phone back, tell the group about hearing another Rune out there. She got close, while the impostor was here all along. I dunno how we got separated, but I think the real Rune's still nearby.  
  
Before we get moving, we get out a rope and connect ourselves together, through belt loops or whatever. We all have enough slack to move around comfortably. We start walking, same order as before, Khulan still marking Xs. We find a Rune again soon.  
  
"What the hell, you guys?" she says. "I tripped and fell down a hole, and you just kept walking?"  
  
We tell her about the dupe, that it looked like she was with us the whole time, and that the fake attacked Jacob.  
  
"Wait," Jacob says, "how do we know if you're real, either? Or any of us, for that matter."  
  
I say, "Rune, what's my favorite song?"  
  
Khulan snorts, "Some Awba bullshit."  
  
"For one, it's pronounced ABBA. For two, not your question."  
  
Rune shrugs. "I forget the exact name, it's that French name one. The one I put on your key-chain."  
  
I nod. "Jacob, um... What are the names of my parents and grandparents?"  
  
He says, "I only remember your dad's name, Eugene. What was the name of my werewolf boyfriend?"  
  
"I... I have no idea."  
  
"Correct. I never told you." He looks at Silas, who's still with us, but has been pretty quiet the whole time. "What did I do after... stuff... happened?"  
  
I smirk. Khulan looks confused. Rune looks put off, and looks away pretending she can't hear us.  
  
Silas shrugs and says he doesn't know. Jacob nods.  
  
We connect Rune in the rope chain, and keep moving. Whenever I can, I peek through the leaves above (not climbing up this time), trying to keep sight of the mountain. Every time I think we're getting close, I look up again and we're further away instead.  
  
"I'm going to try something," Jacob says. He does some magical vision stuff, and then frowns.  
  
"So, I don't want to alarm anyone," he says slowly, "but for just a second, I saw... through the illusion on this place, so to speak. And these woods are absolutely full of invisible monsters. All around us."  
  
I suppress another shiver. I can only hope the reason they haven't tried killing us yet holds out.  
  
Jacob goes on, "I also saw... Silas, suspended in the trees..."  
  
"Like, lynched?"  
  
"No, like a puppet on strings, being piloted by those things."  
  
Everyone looks at Silas.  
  
"Jacob, do you still know that spell to reveal shapeshifters?" I ask.  
  
"Yes, but it won't do any good here. These aren't shapeshifters," he says. "That was a very specific kind of monster."  
  
"So, uh... Hm. Silas answered the question right, so," I muse, "I think the fake one's probably wherever Jodie and Morris are. With fake doubles of us too. They split us all up and planted fakes."  
  
"So there's some fake version of my dad out there?" Rune says. "What are we still doing in here? Let's just go back to the beach."  
  
"'Cause the other two are still here, and I'm not sure we can actually leave until we... solve whatever's keeping us here."  
  
We all wonder why these monsters are splitting us up like this, what their goal is. They pulled us here to the island, seemed to have led us into the woods, but now they're keeping us lost and confused. Sometimes closer to the mountain, sometimes further away. Doesn't make any sense. I just hope we find answers on that mountain. Something to kill that lets us escape this crazy place.  
  
It's still 4 am. Of course.  
  
We keep going, and before I know it, everyone but Khulan's gone. The rope's falling to the ground, cut clean through, before I even realize what happened.  
  
"Oh what the hell! Dammit!" I curse. I march over to the nearest tree, fire a round from my pistol, and stab around with my folding knife on and around it, just in case I can shank one of those little invisible bastards. I don't hit anything.  
  
I sigh. "Okay, let's tie the ends together, I guess."  
  
We do, and walk abreast, keeping each other in peripheral vision.  
  
"So, Van," Khulan says. "After this is all over, I wanna ask Rune out on a date."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"That's okay with you?"  
  
"Yes? If you wanna date her, date her."  
  
"What about that whole talk you gave me earlier?"  
  
"Yeah, I said my piece, and that was it. As long as you treat her well, it's all fine by me. I don't care about the age difference, no matter what Jacob says. But that's for you and him to hash out."  
  
We get to a fork in the path. I see foot prints on one of the paths. I go over to inspect them, trying to figure out if they're familiar. I can't really suss it out, so I just look up through the leaves to see which path points toward the mountain, and we take that one instead. It's not the one with prints. It works, though. We exit the treeline and find ourselves at the foot of the mountain. We start hiking up.  
  
We get up to the peak. There's a flat rock plateau to stand on. We look around. There's nothing here. We call out names, call out Marco, no responses. I pull up my rifle and look through the scope. Nothing special, nothing on the island. The cruise ship's still there. I see someone on deck, but they're too far away to make out. I figure Alexa got bored and rowed back.  
  
I hear a familiar male voice behind me say, "Polo," while I'm scanning the trees. I jump and turn around. It's Lark.  
  
"Hey," I say.  
  
Khulan draws her bow.  
  
"Whoa, hey, no," I say. "We can't fight him. Not just the two of us."  
  
"Wise choice," Lark says.  
  
"We kicked his ass pretty thoroughly last time," Khulan says.  
  
Lark pretends to scratch at his eye, flipping her off in the process.  
  
"The embodiment of fear is really childish, huh?" she snorts.  
  
"Sooo, waddya want, Lark?" I say.  
  
"Oh, I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise," Lark says.  
  
"Is this place... yours?"  
  
"Oh no. This realm has its own tenants." He glances up at the black sky for a second, then back to us with a smile. "You won't find them to be very hospitable."  
  
I look up nervously. Yeah, still invisible. I guess? Or maybe the sky's just so full of monsters in the stratosphere, they blot out -- god, no, not entertaining that train of thought. I look at Lark again. Or I would, except he's gone already.  
  
And there's something new here: A fuck-huge monster hunched over hugging the mountain. It's a whole mountain-sized humanoid, dull grey like charcoal, with nothing for a face but a bunch of eyes, and a few too many limbs to keep track of, each one a little too long with a few too many knees and elbows.  
  
"RUN!" I yell, and bolt.  
  
One of the arms slams down onto the mountain like a falling redwood, shaking the ground, sweeping up towards us. I don't slow down, I run faster and use the momentum and high ground to leap over it, hitting the ground in a rough somersault on the other side. I barely look back as I scramble to my feet. Khulan's not with me, she's yelling from the other side. When the arm lifts up again, she's battered, with her knife out instead of her bow, the rope connecting us already cut.  
  
"Gimme your rifle!" she yells as she runs after me again.  
  
I don't stop, I pull the strap up as I'm running, I throw it into her arms as she catches up. She turns to take a shot, and stops, not shooting. I look back - the monster's gone. Before I can question it, I look forward and see it there, right in my path, face lowered down onto the ground where I'm about to careen.  
  
I curse and skid to a stop before bolting aside. The rifle cracks behind me. Can't see where it hit, but it pulls up in - surprise? - for just a second, just long enough for us both to slide to home base under its freaky eyeball-covered chin. We're in the trees again, surrounded by dread, dark silence. The monster's gone. It doesn't reappear, but we don't stop running, we run as fast as we can until we get to the beach.  
  
The others are mostly there, and they all look like they've just been through hell, too. Except Alexa, who's still in the lifeboat. I wonder who was on the ship.  
  
Jacob, Jodie, and Morris look drained and dead tired, like a bunch of wrung out socks. Rune looks like she got the daylights kicked outta her, and she's been crying and vomiting at the same time or something. Her bat's missing. So is Silas, I notice after a few moments.  
  
Jacob scries to find Silas, and says Silas is on the beach. Silas appears outta thin air and tells us he's been invisible, hiding until he was sure it was really us.  
  
"Okay, we're all here, let's get the hell back on the ship," I say.  
  
"We can't leave!" Rune says. "They took my bat! We have to go back for it!"  
  
"No, we can't stay on this island. There is a huge monster as big as that mountain there, and it moves super fast, and we gotta get as far away from it as possible. We have no chance of fighting it. We have to GO."  
  
"We'll never get another chance to get my bat back! They took my bat, they got his soul out, they changed my magic, I need the bat back to get my magic back to normal!" She makes a little arc of lightning between her fingers. Instead of the usual blue, it's red.  
  
"Wha..."  
  
"Let's burn down this forest," Khulan says. "Nobody's in there to worry about burning to death anymore, right? So let's burn it down. We'll find the bat in the ashes."  
  
We make some Molotov cocktails and chuck 'em in. There's a short flash, and then nothing. The darkness smudges out the fire before it can catch.  
  
"Okay, well, I'm not going in there," I say. "Those woods are full of monsters, and the mountain, and we just, we can't fight 'em."  
  
"I'm not leaving without it," Rune says, stomping up towards the woods. Almost everyone moves to stop her at once. We don't let her by.  
  
Jacob tries scrying on the bat, and when he snaps back from the vision he looks even worse than before. Blanched with subdued terror. He takes Silas aside to tell him something quietly.  
  
"Okay, can someone just tell the rest of us what happened?" I say. "Why is her magic red? Who took the bat? What's going on with Lark? What happened to you all?!"  
  
Jacob and Silas come back. Silas looks like some of that terror transferred to him, but he doesn't say anything.  
  
Jacob explains, "The bat is... not possible to obtain. I'm sorry. As for what happened, I was right. The 'coincidence' of four elementalists on the ship together, on the island together? We were being led into a trap. Lark's trap. There was a cave with four magic seal circles. He trapped us - me, my sister, Morris, Rune... and Adrian."  
  
"So... that's why you couldn't summon him. He was already trapped here?"  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"So he couldn't have ever made good on his threat to kill us. Hmf."  
  
"No, but Lark could have instead, so in the end it..." Jacob sighs. "Lark performed a ritual that he needed the four of us to fuel. He drained our energy. I recognized those seals, too. They matched the one that was keeping the dragon trapped on the mountain in Idaho."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"And he used the ritual to... draw the piece of his soul out of Rune."  
  
Nobody says anything for a few moments. I'm doing a mental head count now, of the monsters who still have Lark essence in them.  
  
"So that's - so just two left," I say. "Cain and the other thing."  
  
"Gorgon," Jacob says. "Yeah."  
  
Rune looks despondent. Khulan tries to console her. It doesn't do any good.  
  
There's nothing left to do here anyway. We get back in the lifeboats, get back to the ship, and the captain's still stuck to the wheel. I'm pretty sure even if we were all sailors, we'd have no chance of getting this thing outta the sand. We confer on what to do. Alexa's the only one who can teleport, and thankfully, the one who still has magic energy left. She says she hopes she can jaunt us back into our own dimension. Worth a shot. Only shot we can take.  
  
We all hold hands in a circle. Alexa fires off the ritual. Lightning bolts seem to hit us all at once, and boom, we're back in Florida, right back in the parking lot of the hotel. Jodie and Morris split off and leave.  
  
"I need a drink," Jacob says, wandering off in another direction.  
  
Rune walks off quietly to her room, to keep moping, I guess. Khulan goes with her.  
  
I check my phone. It's 4:01 am. Cool. No idea how that works, but whatever. Alexa and I go back to our room. I wanna sleep, but I'm still high on adrenaline, so I do some more research on Cain, trying to pin down a more recent location than the little Connecticut town the old hunter Elise had met him in.  
  
There's one little old house in that town, though, that's been owned by someone named Elizabeth for a very long time. Last name changes occasionally, but always Elizabeth. Hmm. I write down the number and address.  
  
I also do another check on Chuck. He's fallen off the planet again.  
  
I'm tired enough by now to sleep. I crash hard, but once again, it doesn't last long. A little after 6 am, there's pounding at the door. I get up to answer. It's Khulan.  
  
"I think Rune ran away."


	16. Girl With a Taste For The World

"It's not going to work."  
  
"No, see, you just -- You can adopt as a single parent, you make way more money so they'll be cool with it, and I can -- you can put me down as a godparent, so if anything happens to you I can still --"  
  
"Can you really?"  
  
"W- I mean. It's not like either of us have experience raising kids anyway. We'll get books, go to classes, whatever. So I mean, yeah, I'll --"  
  
"Until you get too hungry."  
  
"I... No. God. No, I wouldn't do that."  
  
"No, Van. You wouldn't want to do that. Just like you didn't want to bite me when we first slept together. Or that time I cut myself real bad shaving. Or..." Cara sighed. "There's a huge difference between not wanting to do something, and actually..."  
  
"That -- I -- I know. I'm..."  
  
"I know you don't want to. I know y-- We both -- We want a lot of things. If we had a child, right now, and I had to leave you alone with it, today..."  
  
A long pause. "I'm trying."  
  
"But just loving it and wanting -- Trying isn't enough. Caring about someone isn't enough. It's been -- I'm not getting any younger. And you're... not getting any older."  
  
"I..."  
  
"I can't -- I want -- I'm so sorry. I know. You want this. You're trying. But I want this too, and I -- fuck, Van, I can't just wait forever until you can get yourself together. I can't wait to make plans on your immortal timeline. I want to move forward with my life right now. And I -- You're not -- I can't trust you around a child. And I can't afford to wait until I can."

\---

Rune's gone, everybody's up and looking for her. We scour the area. She doesn't reply to any calls or texts. Jacob finally scries on her. She's skateboarding along the highway. We hop in the car, Khulan hops on her motorcycle, we drive down, find Rune just coasting along casually next to traffic, holding out her thumb. I'm relieved she's alive, but my gut's twisted up anyway.  
  
Jacob pulls up alongside her, matching her speed. Khulan pulls in front of her. Rune goes around. I roll down my window and shout to be heard over traffic.  
  
"Rune! What are you doing?!"  
  
No response.  
  
Jacob's shouting past me too, I think Silas is too, Khulan's shouting. She won't stop, won't even look at us.  
  
"Rune, what -- what's going on? Just -- Can you just stop for one second so we can talk?!" I say. She won't reply.  
  
I jump out of the car and run over to chase her. "Rune, please! We -- look, we're not mad, just -- talk to us, just, Rune stop for one second!"  
  
I grab her arm. She finally looks at me, just to glare at me, tries to jerk her arm away as she lets off a red zap of electricity. I let it zap me. I don't let go.  
  
"Rune, please. Where are you even going?"  
  
After forever of the cold shoulder, Rune finally talks. "Home."  
  
"Where IS home, to you?"  
  
"Billings."  
  
"But... why?"  
  
Jacob pulls off to park in front, Khulan behind.  
  
Rune is still barely looking at me, after the glare. "I give up. I can't do this."  
  
"Can't do what?" I ask.  
  
"Anything. I can't do anything. I fucked up. I couldn't kill Lark, I couldn't save Adrian, I lost my bat, I lost the piece of Lark inside me, I fucked up over and over again."  
  
"It -- Rune, we're not the first people, or the first hunters, to screw up. Especially not against Lark, like, he's killed a lot of hunters before. But nobody's been able to get as far as we already have. We kicked his ass once already, and that's more than anyone else has ever done, and we can do it again. So we screwed up, but we can keep trying."  
  
"I'm not good enough."  
  
"Then you'll GET good enough! Look, we all mess up. We'll keep trying. Running away doesn't solve this."  
  
"It solves you guys having to deal with me," she says. "All I ever do is get hurt, get captured, get in trouble, put everyone at risk, and I can't do anything good enough to -- I'm not useful, I'm just a burden."  
  
"I -- it's -- look, I'm not good at like, rousing speeches or pep talks, but like, Rune, I -- We don't keep you, or anyone, around just because of being good at kicking ass," I say. "But you ARE good at that, like, you finished off the dragon, you killed a bunch of werewolves, lots of shit. We've literally all gotten hurt or kidnapped or something at some point, and we're not about to kick someone out because of it. You're good at this but it's not the reason we -- I --"  
  
I'm trembling the more I talk. My stomach's in knots, and it feels like my heart dropped down there to join it. It's now or never to be blunt.  
  
"We want you with us because we care about you, Rune. I -- I care about you."  
  
She zaps me again, harder, jerks her arm away. I keep my hand hanging in the air for a second before letting it drop. The zap didn't hurt as much as... as everything.  
  
Yeah. Once again, I get the hard lesson that caring about someone isn't enough. Doesn't matter how much you love someone, once they decide they don't wanna be in your life anymore.  
  
Khulan stomps up. "Oh, fuck this!" she shouts, grabs Rune, and kisses her. Jacob's aura goes icy around us all. Rune looks shocked, and pulls away after a second.  
  
"Fine," she mutters.  
  
Ah, okay. It does matter. For some people. I have not ever been one of them.  
  
Khulan gets back on her bike, the other adults get back in the car. Rune looks between us all. She just gives an icy look at the car before getting behind Khulan on the bike. We all drive back toward the motel, silent for a long time.  
  
"I am mad," Jacob says suddenly. "Not at Rune. Khulan... doing that. It's one thing to say I'm okay with it. It's different to actually see it happen."  
  
I just shrug. After a while, when I'm sure my voice is steady, I say quietly, "She doesn't want to be around us anymore."  
  
"...Yeah."  
  
All I can think about is how the last people she ran away from were horrible shitty people she wanted dead. I don't know how we fell so hard to land in the 'people to run away from' category. Just shitty people, I guess. Maybe not a monster anymore, but not trustworthy around kids, right?  
  
"Did we mess up?" I say after a while.  
  
"I don't know," Jacob says.  
  
He asks Silas something, I don't really hear it, not paying attention. We get back to the motel. I just go right back into my room. Talking makes shit worse, always has for me, so why stick around to try doing it more? Didn't help where it might have mattered.  
  
I'm exhausted but I can't sleep yet. I feel sad to the point of feeling sick. I try to distract myself. Doing whatever on my phone. Bouncing around articles on Wikipedia, Googling random shit, trying to play app games, whatever. I can't focus.  
  
I find myself looking at the information about (who is probably) Elise again. Elise, Elizabeth, my chain link to Cain. I was thinking for a while I should worry about becoming a vampire - less and less. Getting used to humanity. Getting used to...  
  
My biggest worry was what if I become feral and dangerous, what if I can't control myself, what if I become a danger to Rune? I don't want -- Well, whatever. Guess I'm an idiot for putting all my eggs in that basket.  
  
Man, here I am unwanted again. Doesn't matter what I do. Sooner or later. All my other hunter friends before this. Cara. My fucking dad. Doesn't matter how much you love them. Sooner or later...  
  
I fall asleep with the phone in my hand. Wake up at some point, don't get up for a while, don't want to, don't feel like it. Eventually I call the number. I get a response. It's Elise. Wow. I should be surprised or something. I don't feel like that either.  
  
I tell her my deal. I was a Cain vampire, I got turned human, I want to be a Cain vampire again. Yes, she can put me in touch with Cain, but she wants to meet in person first to verify I'm trustworthy. I say sure. I ask where's a good place to meet. We agree on Charlotte, North Carolina. It's halfway from here to there.  
  
I text the group to tell them. Not like we have any other missions going on right now anyway. Jacob still gripes at me about making plans without consulting him. He has to pay for gas, after all. He still agrees to drive us there.  
  
I should probably form a backup plan in case he finally gets sick of me. I guess vampirism IS that backup plan.  
  
Rune still won't ride with us. I don't try to make any conversation with anyone. I just read used books and magazines, fuck around on my phone, or nap. Just like the good old days.  
  
Haven't been sleeping well. Occasional bad dreams, occasional sneaking away for a private crying jag. Stupid. I don't let Alexa see any of that. Don't want to dump my drama on her and drive her away too.  
  
\---  
  
When we get to Charlotte and book our rooms at a motel, we find Rune's bat on one of the beds, waiting for us, with a note attached that says, "You dropped this". Nobody recognizes the handwriting. I take a photo. Nobody touches the bat until Jacob does some magic to make sure it's really the same bat, and not cursed or booby-trapped or something.  
  
So Rune has her bat back. It's hard to feel optimistic about that fixing things. Oh well.  
  
We head to the Midnight Diner. Great aesthetic here. Art nouveau steel exterior with red neon lightning, checkerboard floor, furniture in black and white and red. A true New Jerseyan has a well-honed sense of diner appreciation.  
  
I call Elise to let her know we're here. We order food and shakes while waiting. We don't wait long, she shows up in minutes. Probably teleported. She walks over. All eyes on her. She's tall, dark, and handsome. Like six feet tall, at least. Black hair, brown eyes, wearing a suit. Oh... man. If I didn't already have a girlfriend...  
  
We all make some introductions, except Silas, who already knows her. She's surprised he has a kid.  
  
I go over my story again. Dying horribly, became a vampire to not die, got unwillingly turned human by a guy with allegedly divine magic, got told by a prophet that only Cain could help me, nobody else could sire me. I'm trying to keep Rune's deal a secret, but she outs herself as said prophet by saying she isn't a prophet. We point out she literally receives precognitive visions from the embodiment of Fate.  
  
We also realize that Elise, being one of the journal authors, might know about Lark and how to beat him too. We tell her about everything except Cain and the gorgon being free of Lark juice now. All got killed, except Rune, who got a magical stomach pump exorcism, or whatever.  
  
Jacob says, "We were under the impression it wasn't possible for that to happen. From what I know of magic, it 'wants' to... go in sequence. To complete cycles, to finish. What happens now that the sequence has been broken?"  
  
"I don't know," Elise says. "We didn't think it was possible either. I wasn't present for Lark's defeat by Alexander's hand. I only know of it from what he told me. He never mentioned anything like this possibly happening."  
  
We reassure her that because of Cain being one of two seals remaining, we really, really don't wanna kill him -- not that we were planning on it anyway. She says we likely wouldn't need to, since he mostly keeps to himself, doesn't do villain shit that would get hunters on his case.  
  
She asks me outside. I follow. There's a sudden breeze that stops just as suddenly -- and Cain's right there behind us. He ran so fast he made a wind blow by. Neato.  
  
He also looks mixed race, sort of, in an impossible-to-tell way. Presumably because he predates actual, like, races. He's got blondish wavy hair, medium-lenth, parted on one side. Blue eyes. Not bad looking, for a man, anyway. Wears a long dark coat.  
  
"Hey," I say.  
  
I'm not good at talking to anyone. Not even the first vampire and one of the first humans gets special treatment. I could add 'Sir', but unless someone gets on my case about honorifics, I never bother. (Well, except for Alexa. Sometimes. In private. That's different.)  
  
He asks for my hand. I start to offer, then jerk back.  
  
"Wait," I say, "the last guy who wanted my hand made me human again. You're not going to turn me on the spot or anything, right?"  
  
"No," he says. "This is to taste."  
  
"Oh. Okay." I hesitate a second, but hold out my arm. Never actually been bitten by a vampire before, myself. Siring doesn't involve that.  
  
Cain's super-speed applies to biting too, or something, cuz I don't see it happen. He takes my hand and there's a real quick little tingling sensation in my wrist, and that's it. No scars either. Weird. Maybe he can heal other people somehow.  
  
He looks surprised. "Interesting. You're telling the truth. You were a vampire... and now you're not."  
  
"Yep."  
  
"How did that happen?"  
  
I go over the story again.  
  
He nods and asks me to come inside and talk privately. I say okay. We go in, introduce him and the group to each other, then we go to a booth way off in the corner, while Elise sits down at the table with the others.  
  
"I'm afraid I cannot sire you," Cain says.  
  
"Um. That -- but... Fate said you were the only one who could," I say.  
  
"I can help you, yes. By telling you how to become a vampire."  
  
"But there's only -- Oh. Oh. I have to do it the other way. Um."  
  
"What do you know, exactly, of how it's done?" he asks.  
  
"Well, uhh. I know that it always involves a human, um, committing some..." I cough and look aside. "Jack the Ripper went on a murdering spree, and Dracula did something like that too, and I know it has to be the human personally doing it, so like, Hitler wouldn't count because he didn't kill them all himself, he just ordered other people to do it..."  
  
"Obviously, simply committing a murder, or even serial murder, is not sufficient," Cain says.  
  
"I figured it had to be... significant... for some reason..."  
  
"You're familiar with my story, yes?"  
  
"Uhhh. Well. I wasn't raised very religious," I say evasively. Seems rude to point out he murdered his brother.  
  
"I see. The way it's told in Genesis is essentially correct," Cain says, "in the most basic, general sense. I did murder Abel, but as I said, simply committing a murder isn't enough. It's more involved than that. The reason so few vampires have been created anew this way is because it's next to impossible to discover the method by accident."  
  
He takes out a pen and starts writing on a napkin while he talks.  
  
"Before I share the method with you, I would like to know what you plan to do with your vampirism."  
  
"Basically what I was doing before, and what I'm doing now, I guess," I say. "Hunting monsters, um, protecting my friends. I try to keep a low profile. I'm not in this to amass power or go on murdering sprees. I don't go around killing innocents or anything."  
  
Cain nods. "And I must ask that you keep this information to yourself, for your own safety."  
  
"As in, you'll kill me if I don't?"  
  
"Oh, no. I may live a very private life, but I'm not sort of enforcer."  
  
"Okay. I mean, I already know -- like, I've been keeping the stuff about bloodlines and how to become a vampire in general a secret already. I haven't told anyone about any of it, not even them." I nod back toward the group. "I know how it is. If humans know, they might do evil murder shit to become powerful monsters, and if vampires know humans know, they might murder them first."  
  
"Yes, exactly."  
  
"So, uh. Is there a rule against vampires killing other vampires? Do you care if we -- there's this other Cain vampire that we're thinking of hunting, so..."  
  
"Again, I'm not an enforcer. I don't care very strongly what is done with this power. I'm not the vampire police."  
  
He folds up the napkin and slides it toward me, but doesn't let it go yet. "On this paper is a list. In order to become a vampire again, you must have on you the blood of these people, and then kill someone."  
  
"Um... Who? Is it a hit-list?"  
  
"No, no. You technically don't have to kill the people in this list. And they're not specific individuals, but they are specific categories of people."  
  
"Who's the person I have to kill?"  
  
"It doesn't matter who, except that you must kill them out of spite. You must honestly want that person dead, for reasons other than becoming a vampire. You can't pick any stranger to kill."  
  
"But if I AM killing them to become a vampire... Does it still count? Can it be both?"  
  
"I suppose so. As long as your primary motivation is personally spiteful."  
  
"Hm. Crap. I killed the last person I actually hated already," I say. "What about Ripper then? I mean, did he personally hate those prostitutes or does it count if you're just a psycho who gets off on killing?"  
  
"I wouldn't know, seeing as I never met him. I couldn't tell you about his motivations, but whatever they were, it worked."  
  
"Does it have to be a human?"  
  
"It can't be an animal."  
  
"What about a human-intelligence monster?"  
  
"I wouldn't know that either."  
  
"So these blood samples have to be fresh, and in contact with my skin, and I have to personally kill someone while it is. Do I have to do it with my bare hands? Or does, like, a sniper rifle count?" I ask.  
  
"I would see killing someone with your bare hands as a more spiteful act, but I suppose the cold aloofness of ending a life from an unseen distance can be as well," Cain says. "Do you think you could kill someone hatefully with a sniper rifle?"  
  
"It's how I killed the last guy. I felt pretty hateful when I blew his head off. So yeah."  
  
"There you are, then."  
  
He finally lets me have the napkin. I read it. It says: "A man, a woman, an elder, an infant, a friend".  
  
I fold it up again. "Oh."  
  
"You may be wondering how I discovered this," he says.  
  
"Well..."  
  
"My process of becoming a vampire was a little different, for whatever reason - I didn't have to follow these 'rules'. But I will admit that I wasn't a good man back then. I admit that, at the time I killed my brother, I hated him."  
  
"Mhm..."  
  
"I would rather not go into the full details."  
  
"Yeah, I... wasn't going to ask."  
  
"I thank you for that. I hope you understand that I'm not that person any longer. I'd like to think I've changed," Cain says.  
  
"Yeah, I mean, you've had like, a few thousands years at least," I say. "I hope anyone would change after that long. Like, I'm not here to judge you for something you did literally before recorded history..."  
  
He chuckles. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask?"  
  
"A couple things. Um, first is, can I at least tell the few people I travel with? This is something I'm gonna need help on. And they'll need to at least be in the know enough to, uh... Either help me do it, or at least not freak out if I'm, like, suddenly trying to get a baby's blood out of nowhere..."  
  
"Do you trust them?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I'll leave it to your judgment."  
  
"The other thing I wanna ask, uh. Do you... ever regret being a vampire? Or wish you were still human?"  
  
"Hm." Cain thinks for a few moments. "At first, yes, of course there were times where I wished to be mortal again. But that time is long past. I'm content with what I am now."  
  
"Okay. Actually, there's one more thing I wanna ask. Do you have any kind of sense, or an actual database, or something, on all your, uh, descendants, so to speak? Of the bloodline, I mean."  
  
"No, I don't make any attempt to keep track of them. I'm not involved in any kind of vampire society in general."  
  
"Okay. Thanks. I - I mean it. Thank you. I don't know if I'm gonna do this," I say, looking at the napkin, "but at least I have the option again. I didn't really have a choice one way or another before. I mean, I sorta did, except the choice was dying horribly if I didn't, so, yeah. At least now I have some time to think about it without that hanging over my head, or someone forcing a change on me against my will."  
  
He nods and starts to stand.  
  
"I - okay, one last thing to ask," I say. "What made you decide to let me do this?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"When you asked me what I wanted to do with being a vampire..."  
  
"Ah, I was just curious," he says.  
  
"Oh. So it wasn't some kind of test of worthiness based on my answer."  
  
"No, but it's good to know you don't intend to be a mass murderer of innocents."  
  
Cain says goodbye to me, and to Rune, who was apparently hiding in a nearby booth eavesdropping the whole time. Well, there goes secrecy if I'd wanted it anyway. I say goodbye to him. I'm tempted to call him Gramps or something, since he's sort of like my grandfather (in a sense), but decide against it in the end. I already had a real Grandpa, anyway.  
  
Once he's gone, I sit at the table with the others again. Rune's already snuck back. Elise is still there.  
  
Jacob looks off where Cain passed by. "What did Abel look like that HE was the favorite son?"  
  
\---  
  
"Hey, by the way," I say to Elise, "what are you? Since you're some kind of immortal, obviously."  
  
She looks amused. "I'm a vampire."  
  
"I shoulda guessed that. Are you a Cain type?"  
  
"No, I'm something else."  
  
"Bloodrager? Black Hole?"  
  
"No, none of those."  
  
Jacob says, "Just how many bloodlines are there?"  
  
"Seven total that I know of, including mine. I started my own."  
  
"Out of curiosity, what do your fangs look like?" he asks.  
  
She reveals her fangs: All four canines grow out sharp, each one with a second sharp canine next to it. Eight total fangs. I have a pretty personal bias, but I personally think that's pretty hot.  
  
"Have, uh, you ever sired anyone?" I ask. "Or is the whole bloodline just you?"  
  
"I've sired a total of eight people. I don't know what any of them are up to nowadays."  
  
"Hm. Anyway, so, Cain can't sire me," I say. "I'm gonna have to -- actually, uh, wait. I'm gonna say some like, top secret vampire lore here, so..."  
  
Silas decides he doesn't want to know, gets up, goes outside for now.  
  
"Okay, so before I show you guys what's written here," I say, "I'll say right now that I don't have to KILL these people."  
  
"When you have to preface something with, 'at least I don't have to kill them,' I get concerned," Jacob says.  
  
I hand him the napkin first, and explain to the group what Cain told me - blood samples on my skin, kill someone I honestly hate and want to kill for its own sake, vampirism or not.  
  
"Too bad we already cleaned up in Billings," I mutter.  
  
"We know someone in New York we could kill," Rune says. "Mark."  
  
"Marcus? I -- I mean I don't like him, and I wouldn't cry if someone else killed him, but I don't hate him enough to kill him, and..." I shrug. "He's an asshole, but not an evil villain."  
  
Jacob passes the napkin along. "Van, you need to learn how to hold grudges."  
  
"Apparently. Well, I kinda hate my sire, but I dunno if the target has to be a human or not, so. Oh, there's that other guy in New York. The dad of that victim from the graveyard, Lyla Valentine's dad, who's probably abusive. He's tentatively on my mental list already. I dunno, does it count if it's just someone I think is bad enough to die, or does it have to be personally related to me..."  
  
By the time everyone has a look at the list, Jacob taps my leg under the table. I look and see he's offering a bottle of blood. Don't know if he just cut himself on the spot, or if he had that ready to go in case I got re-sired today, but whatever, I take it.  
  
"There," he says, "now you have the blood of a man."  
  
"Well, I'd say this is the blood of a friend."  
  
Jacob actually looks a little surprised to be called that. "Oh."  
  
"Not that you're not a man, but, y'know. There's plenty of those. I dunno if it counts if it's from two different categories, so I'm gonna play it safe and assume there's no overlap, and it all has to come from five different people. How are we gonna keep it from drying up or congealing though?"  
  
"Ice wizard? Duh?"  
  
"Right. So that's one down. What mostly worries me is the 'infant' part."  
  
"Yeah, we can't just kidnap a baby."  
  
Nobody has any kids, nieces, nephews, little siblings or cousins young enough. The group throws around some ideas, and the best one so far is pretending to be doctors to get a blood sample from a baby under the guise of testing. Might be able to get some from an old person the same way, too.  
  
"So you'll be creating your own new bloodline," Jacob says.  
  
"I... Huh," I say. "So I won't have back my old powers?"  
  
"I think you would likely have something similar. Or perhaps your new bloodline will have your new magic instead," he says. "I'm going to assume that the powers of the vampire are, if not familiar, then at least suitable to the person founding that bloodline, and based on their abilities or personality."  
  
"Hm. I probably only even got that kind of magic because I was already a vampire, too. I wonder what kinda magic I woulda got if I learned magic before I was sired..."  
  
My phone buzzes. I check it. It's a text from Rune that says, "Would your new vampire bloodline be called Foxy Vampires?"  
  
I stare at my phone. Every so often she trolls the group by texting everyone random pickup lines out of nowhere. I keep hoping that if I just don't acknowledge them, she'll stop. I can't tell if it's a good or a bad sign that she's doing it again - awkward as hell, but a sign she's in a better mood, I guess? Better a rascal than a runaway.  
  
Still something to think about, naming the bloodline. Renard means "fox" and there's the whole pun on bats, being called flying foxes. After a minute I just text back, "Maybe."  
  
"Anyway," I say out loud, "uh, Elise, we should tell you that Lark knows you're still around, and kinda threatened you to us. We ran into him and he had these corpses with names on them, and yours was one of them. He probably wants to get to Cain, too, and get out that piece of his soul."  
  
"Understood. My home is very secure, and Cain is very capable of taking care of himself, but we will take the warning under advisement."  
  
After some more chatter about vampires and becoming one, I say, "I'm... still not sure if I'm going to go through with this when the time comes."  
  
"Really?" Jacob says.  
  
"If you'd asked me before, I woulda jumped on it. I woulda gone straight back to being a vampire as soon as possible," I say. "I was all weak and helpless and didn't know how to be human. Now I'm getting more used to it, and learned magic and stuff, so it's not as... I dunno. Maybe I shouldn't rush right into it, now that I actually have the option of taking my time to think about it. I'm not going to die tomorrow."  
  
"Whatever you decide, we'll support your decision."  
  
"I guess I'm mostly thinking about, y'know, stuff that only mortals can do, that you can't do if you're undead."  
  
"What, breathing? Eating?"  
  
"I -- Sure, that too."  
  
I'm thinking of the now hypothetical possibility of parenthood, but that's still in the 'can' folder, not the 'should' folder. Not something I wanna talk about in a group anyway.  
  
Everyone finishes whatever food or drinks they ordered by now. Elise stands to leave, we're all saying our goodbyes and thank-yous, when Jacob stops her.  
  
"Hey Elise, before you go, I think there's something my friend and her girlfriend want to ask you," he says.  
  
I look at him. "There is?"  
  
He continues to her, "The two of them are both obviously very thirsty for you."  
  
I turn red. He's not wrong, but... "I, um. I mean I have a girlfriend. So."  
  
"And? Threesomes exist."  
  
Khulan and Rune both throw in a pitch for polyamory too. Elise is just watching us quietly. I'm completely red. I look at Alexa, who hasn't said anything yet. She just shrugs at me.  
  
"I -- should -- do you want to?" I stammer.  
  
"Sure. Do you?"  
  
"Y-yeah. I mean. Yes."  
  
We follow Elise out, ask her if she's down. She says yes. We lead her back to the motel.  
  
Jacob texts me on the way there with, "Don't forget to use protection!"  
  
I text back, "What do you mean? You said we didn't need it with the ring."  
  
He doesn't reply.  
  
"Jacob!"  
  
"It's fine. Probably."  
  
"It's a little late for 'probably', Jacob."  
  
"God, are you texting me during?"  
  
"We're not even at the motel yet. But there was that whole cruise. We've used the ring already. Do I need to get a pregnancy test?"  
  
"No, it's fine. I was joking."  
  
"Good. Because if your magic gets me knocked up, I'm making you pay child support."  
  
I turn off my phone when we get to the room, because I'm not in fact the kind of weirdo who uses my phone during sex.  
  
If I thought that first time with Alexa was intense... Well, these are two supernaturally strong and wizardly immortals who don't need to sleep, who are both dominant tops with competitive chips on their shoulders which just turns up to 11 when you sandwich someone between 'em. And that someone is still just a mere mortal human.  
  
In other words, I get fucked within an inch of my life. Repeatedly. I lose count after a while. It's a pretty good night.  
  
I wake up the next morning so sore I can barely move, and I don't bother trying for a while. Elise gets up, makes some small talk, heads off to go back home. I'm pretty content to lie here and bask. At some point I text to Jacob, "Wish motels had room service. Can't walk. Worth it."  
  
He texts back, "You're welcome. It's not like I needed to sleep anyway."  
  
Eventually I manage to get up and get dressed. Today is a turtleneck day. Actually, make that a turtleneck week. Actually, I'm just gonna look like a prude for a while because damn. I'm covered in bruises, bites (both normal and vampiric), rope burns, minor electric burns, and assorted other marks of mysterious nature.  
  
Everybody reconvenes for breakfast, where I make my next suggestion.  
  
"Hey, so. We don't have any cases, missions, or leads left right now. Why don't we hunt down Chuck? He's an evil vampire, so we'd do it eventually anyway," I say. "Problem is, I lost the trail on him a while ago, and I haven't picked it up since. I say we should go to my hometown, his only other last known location. And find out what's up with that missing persons file on me, too."  
  
Khulan snickers at how hoarse my voice is. Nobody else comments, thank god.  
  
"Where's your hometown again, Van?" Jacob asks.  
  
"Salem, New Jersey."  
  
"Ugh. Do we have to?"  
  
"It is in fact where my hometown is, and we have no better leads, and nothing better to do."  
  
"But do we have to go to Jersey?" he whines.  
  
"What, you got drama with an ex there too?" I roll my eyes. "It's not like we're going to Trenton."  
  
"But it's still..." He shudders. "Jersey. I won't be able to breath there, with all the mountains of burning tires and garbage factory fumes."  
  
"Hey, hey, that's further north. We don't have that in Salem. We just have miles of swamps full of toxic waste and giant radioactive muskrats, duh."  
  
Rune says, "If I drink the swamp water, will I turn into a mutant with cool superpowers?"  
  
Khulan says, "Rune, you already ARE a mutant with cool superpowers."  
  
And that's pretty much the extent of Rune's recent interactions with anyone who isn't Khulan.  
  
The team heads off, Jacob still whining about Jersey, putting on a stronger and stronger New York accent the further we go.  
  
"Hey now, you're not the only person who lived in New York here," I say.  
  
"I know. So why can't we just go find a case there?"  
  
"Look, Jacob..." I lean forward from the back seat with a serious tone.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Can we at least agree that we both hate people from Boston?"


	17. The Beast About to Strike

December's here. At the next hotel, Jacob comes over to our room, asks to talk to me alone. Alexa says sure and walks out.  
  
"No, I meant --" he starts to say, but she's already gone. "And now I feel like an asshole."  
  
"What's up?" I ask.  
  
"Are you okay?" he asks me, in that special tone people ask that question with.  
  
I can't bring myself to reply for almost a full minute. "I was going to say I'm fine, but, uh, I think that really long silence ruined that, so..."  
  
"Also, I already know you're not," he says. "I was just asking as a polite way to start this conversation."  
  
"Mhm."  
  
"I know that things have been... bad. I know that it hurts to know that Rune doesn't want to be around us anymore."  
  
"...Mhm."  
  
"And that she isn't really talking to you anymore..."  
  
My shoulders just sink lower the more he goes on.  
  
"She has a lot going on right now," he says, "especially recently, it's been a rough few weeks. But I can say from my experience, having once been that troubled teen runaway, it's not going to last forever. This will pass."  
  
I shrug. "My experiences have gone differently, then."  
  
"I know it seems like she hates us, but she doesn't. She just doesn't want to be around us or talk to us or spend time with us."  
  
"Okay. Well. That was a great pep talk," I say sarcastically. "I feel fantastic."  
  
"Yeah, this didn't really go in my head how I was imagining it, so, I'm going to change the topic now. Would you like to help dye my hair?"  
  
"Uh - I - Sure? Do you need help? Is it a two-person job?"  
  
"No, I'm just trying desperately to change the subject."  
  
I agree and help with that. I don't mind some busy-work. We dye his hair super dark purple. I approve; purple's my favorite color. After that it's off to Salem.  
  
It's your typical American small town out East. You go through endless pine forests on a single-lane road, cross some train tracks, try to guess if the mystery smell is a factory or just marsh fumes, and then boom. If you blink too long you'll drive right through it.  
  
Nothing but one-story brick businesses on the main road (poorly named Broadway, in high aspirations it never lived up to). Half those businesses are antique shops. The other half are mom-'n'-pops. Chain businesses won't touch this rusty snoozeville.  
  
All the municipal buildings and the only two schools have that early American trying-to-be-Greco-Roman aesthetic with the bigass white column porticos and names carved in stone. Just how I remember it. Probably just how my grandparents remembered it, too. Everywhere I've revisited has changed at least a little over the decades. Salem's been in stasis since we still paid taxes to England.  
  
Lotta people think of Jersey Shore reality TV when they think of my state. Literally nothing so interesting has happened anywhere in this county. Our most interesting landmark is a very old tree. A quick Google search tells me the population's actually managed to shrink since I moved away, and we never broke 10k in the first place.  
  
A million memories hit me on every street in a tidal wave of nostalgia. I still miss this place sometimes. Maybe I miss the sense of potential. Dreaming about the future before I found out I didn't have one.  
  
We swing past my old homes to see if they're still standing. They are. Salem's not rich enough to knock anything down, no matter how old it is. Guess that's why Chuck got on so well here.  
  
Next order of business is actually checking up on estate ownership. My grandparents' house, and maybe my parents' house, went to Chuck. His old house is here too. I call some real estate offices. My old homes are owned and lived in. Chuck's is for sale, but the lady on the phone won't say by whom. Time to ad-lib some fresh BS.  
  
"Actually, I'm from the Internal Revenue Service inquiring into the assets of Charles Frances Hewitt for reasons of suspected tax fraud," I say.  
  
Honestly, he probably frauds the hell outta his taxes. This can't be the first time someone's made this inquiry.  
  
The lady asks for my name and contact info and wants some kinda proof in paper that I'm really a fed. I put her on hold and ask Jacob if we have IRS stuff in the big box of fake IDs. We don't, but apparently we have a fake marriage certificate, and his not-fake high school diploma.  
  
"Ah, yes," I tell her, "my name is Louise Gladstone. I'll get back to you with the information shortly."  
  
Louis and Gladys were my grandparents. Hopefully nobody notices. I didn't have an IRS cover spoofed ahead of time.  
  
The party goes over some options on how to get those ownership records. We can either go back to New York to stock up on fake forms and IDs again, or just break into the office at night. Since we also need more varieties of blood for the vampirism ritual, we decide to go to New York to visit Dr. Luna Rose and ask for some spare blood samples under the table. Two birds, one stone.  
  
In the meantime I put on my black suit and hit the courthouse and police station. Never been in either before. Despite my life of crime later on, I didn't do anything that interesting as a teen. Too busy trying not to die.  
  
I go in as Special Agent Victoria McCain of the FBI, asking around about the missing persons case for Vanessa Renard.  
  
Turns out my guess was right. Otto, that boy I briefly dated in high school, didn't get the memo that I willingly left town. He freaked out, thought I got kidnapped, reported me as a missing person. My grandparents couldn't verify my location 'cause I had no actual address or phone number in New York at the time. So I fell off the grid, cops said I was missing, that was it.  
  
Hey, it was the '80s, okay? We didn't have satellite cams everywhere and digital face recognition tracking our every move. It was a lot easier to disappear back then, even accidentally.  
  
I tell the cops the case is in federal hands now and they can close the lid on it forever. They say okay. They don't care.  
  
I ask about Chuck, if he's got any charges or whatever. Nothing turns up at the station, but he shows up in records at the courthouse as a lawyer. No big shocker the literal blood-sucking monster was on the bar. Mostly divorce lawyering. Of course. Sleaziest use of a skillset short of playing defense for sex offenders (that'd be too high-profile bad PR).  
  
After that I hit a wall. Chuck's trail is almost ice cold. Not a wasted trip though. There's a sense of closure in coming here.  
  
The last time I came here, I was in a big sad hurry to leave New York after getting dumped, then finding out my grandparents died and I got snubbed out of both funerals and the inheritance. Not even a P.O. box of keepsakes left for me. Nada. Chuck swept it all up and sold it off. Which is why the only fuckin' family photo I have left I had to get photocopied from a newspaper.  
  
This time I get to see the place with a clear head. I get to eat whatever I want, too. We hit the Salem Oak Diner and everyone orders milkshakes. I get a giant soft bagel sandwich with all the trimmings, absolutely lousy with calories. Can't be a real Jerseyan without eating a proper bagel sandwich at least once.  
  
As we're getting ready to go, Ezekiel Walker calls. Never a good sign to get random, unexpected calls from other monster hunters.  
  
I answer and I hear shit going down in the background. Zeke sounds outta breath, distressed, there's some scuffle, yelling or growling, and over it all is some kinda beautiful, angelic singing voice. Must be Michael the literal siren lulling a monster to sleep.  
  
"Zeke? What's going on? Are you okay?" I say.  
  
"We're alive and stable," he says, which means 'no but yes enough'. "We just got attacked by some guy -- some monster -- who was looking for you. He asked for information about you by name, somehow he knew we were connected. And then he just flipped out and attacked us."  
  
"Oh shit. Is it Charles?"  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Old fat guy with red eyes?"  
  
"No, it's a -- well as a human he was just an average looking young white guy. As a monster, he's..." I hear Zeke's head turn to look at whatever it is, which isn't growling and smashing up furniture anymore. Zeke continues, "Like a werewolf, but worse. Bigger, uglier, more monstrous. Pretty horrifying-looking, actually."  
  
My mind goes to the Silver Fangs. We toasted 'em all, right?  
  
Zeke answers my unspoken question first: "He introduced himself as Atticus Tirabassi. Does that name ring a bell?"  
  
"Oh shit," I say again. "That's the FBI agent who questioned us in New York."  
  
\---  
  
"So, Tiram-...bassi is a super-werewolf now," I tell the others when I hang up.  
  
They ask me what the hell that means.  
  
"I dunno. He's like a werewolf, but more."  
  
"More what?" Khulan asks.  
  
Shrug. "Spooky? Anyway, uh, not much more we can do in Salem, and we were headed north anyway probably, and they're in Connecticut..." I look at Jacob. "I mean, it's your gas money, so up to you if we go help them out."  
  
"Anywhere but Jersey is fine by me."  
  
I roll my eyes behind my shades.  
  
As we all pack our stuff in the car, we theorize on what a super-werewolf might be, for lack of a better name. Vampiric werewolf, demon-possessed werewolf, some kind of Lark conjuration, maybe just a regular werewolf that's all jacked up on meth and steroids.  
  
"I feel bad about this," I comment. "He couldn't let it go when I didn't tell him what was going on. He was asking for me by name. Maybe if I just told him I used to be a vampire..."  
  
"Then you would have been locked away as criminally insane," Jacob says. "Whether he believed you or not."  
  
"It's still on me that he got mixed up in monster shit."  
  
"True, maybe if he had forewarning about what exactly he was getting himself into by following your trail," Jacob says. "Then again, he's just a cop, so..."  
  
"Well yeah, he's still The Man."  
  
"Exactly. He's a white New York City cop, he kinda deserves this by default."  
  
I snort. "FBI's a little better than cops. But only a little."  
  
We joke about dirty pigs until I go back to give the rooms a last sweep to make sure nobody forgot a phone charger. On the way back, I realize it's just me and Rune out here. Everyone else is ready to go. And she'll get on Khulan's bike, I won't see her all day until we hit the next motel, and I'll be lucky if she talks to me then. I gotta try to fix this.  
  
I swallow my nerves. "Hey Rune."  
  
She stops. "Yeah?"  
  
"Can, um. Can we talk?"  
  
She shrugs. "Sure."  
  
Better than last time. We walk to the side of the building where nobody's gonna eavesdrop.  
  
I stammer with my hands in my pockets like an idiot for a minute before just asking, "Are you mad at us?"  
  
"Mad at you?" she says. Her tone's flat except the emphasis on 'you'.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
She sighs, doesn't respond right away. "No," she says eventually and doesn't elaborate.  
  
"I, uh. Look, I... I've always been pretty reserved, I try not to get in people's business, not friends' business anyway," I say. "I don't want to get people mad and push 'em away, asking too much and -- But I know you're going through a tough time right now, there's a lot on your shoulders, and I, um, I shoulda checked in with you more, a lot sooner. I'm sorry --"  
  
"No," she interrupts. "No. Don't."  
  
"I just --"  
  
"You don't have to be sorry," she sighs. "I'm sorry."  
  
I stare in surprise. "I... It's --"  
  
"It's not fine. I fucked up. And I'm sorry."  
  
"Well... Then... uh, I forgive you. But I'm still sorry too." I pause, trying to think of how to say things. "I wasn't kidding when I said before that we all fuck up. Maybe we look cool and competent at what we're doing, because we've been doing it longer, but like. You're not the only one here who -- who struggles with feeling inadequate."  
  
Now it's her turn to look surprised, like it hadn't occurred to her the grown-ups might not really know what they're doing either.  
  
I go on, "Like, Jacob feels like he doesn't even deserve to be happy. Alexa said she became a dracolich cuz she was the runt of the litter. Khulan... I dunno what her story is exactly, but I think her S.O. got eaten got ghouls or something? And your dad fucked up and lost his whole family, and he knows it."  
  
Guilt washes over her face when I mention her dad.  
  
"The point is, I think we've all been kinda wrapped up in our own problems so much we, uh... We didn't make sure you..."  
  
She hugs me. After a second of surprise, I hug her back.  
  
She says, "I shouldn't have run away. You guys are the best thing that's happened to me."  
  
We hold the hug for a while. I try not to get choked up about it. When she eventually pulls away, I reach up to wipe my eyes behind my glasses.  
  
"U-uhm." I clear my throat. "Before we go -- I was -- uh -- I kinda had some things and my thoughts got a little derailed."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"No, no, it's fine. I, um. When I said before how much that birthday gift meant. And the whole party and everything. I know it seems silly to say that a keychain can mean a lot but it did, cuz it was more than almost anyone had done in my whole life. I don't usually do birthdays because, ah -- that's how my mom died. So my dad didn't really wanna celebrate that. And then he just... went off to war... and died there."  
  
"Oh - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to --"  
  
"No, it's fine. I mean that, I stopped bothering to do birthdays cuz nobody else for a long time -- Nobody I knew in town wanted to celebrate that. And you, and the others, literally gave me the best birthday I'd ever had. Most people -- I'm not used to people being happy I was born. So, thank you." I laugh dryly, self-consciously. "But, yeah, I'm pretty used to the feeling of being a burden. I've been trying to justify being born my whole existence. I-is what I was getting at. In the speech before. You're not alone. I don't want you to feel like you're alone in this. In anything."  
  
I hesitate a second before reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. She lets me, and smiles a little, and I feel a huge wave of relief.  
  
"Anyway," I say, "we should get back to the others before they start to think monsters ate us."  
  
She still rides with Khulan. I guess the car is getting a little crowded by now. I still miss getting to chat with her, or singing along to showtunes, or whatever. I don't think things are gonna go back to how they were, not really.  
  
As much as I hate doing it, I start thinking about the future. Maybe we closed that rift a little. But rifts are still there. I get the feeling that I get eventually with hunting parties: Things are on their way to dissolving for good.  
  
I also think about Chuck. And what he taught me, and how it relates to the future. How it relates to how I relate to people. He's a pretty selfish, soulless bastard, but he wasn't wrong about the value of loyal service to others. Might seem like an oxymoron. He could be the most helpful, loyal person in the world for completely self-serving reasons.   
  
I'm not good at the whole, demanding things from people, thing. Chuck felt, or knew (or thought he 'knew') that if he showered people with favors, they owed him back, he deserved repayment, and it wasn't wrong to collect those debts. I feel like I don't do enough for anyone to deserve anything.  
  
I feel guilty enough just riding in the car sometimes, knowing Jacob's paying for gas. Knowing that Jacob pays for... everything.  
  
And when he gets Adrian back and they decide to honeymoon off alone indefinitely, nobody else on this team can pick up the financial slack. My newfound need to eat real food and sleep at night is gonna be a huge problem then.  
  
I'm scared of how I'll change as a vampire again. If I become a danger to the others. Especially Rune. But these past weeks drove it home pretty hard that keeping myself vulnerable for the sake of probably-temporary people in my life isn't going to help me survive in the long run. How long's Rune gonna stick around this time? Sucks to consider, but it's there. It's always there now.  
  
Right now, these people are the most important people in my life. They're the ONLY people in my life. My only goals have been to help them, and by proxy help who they're helping too. They've been helping me back, because I'm here. But once those checklists are all crossed off for them, I'm pretty sure I won't be on it anymore.  
  
Humanity was fun while it lasted, but let's be honest, staying human's a shitty retirement plan.  
  
\---  
  
Zeke and Mike have Tirabassi handled right now, so it's not a mad dash to reach 'em. New York's on the way.  
  
We visit one of Jacob's shady contacts for new IDs. Can't find his gun smuggler friend. Too bad. Khulan wanted a sniper rifle too, and we all could use more silver bullets for fighting super-werewolves.  
  
We book rooms for the night. Jacob sends everyone ahead of us to check in. He doesn't get out, so I don't bother getting out either. Don't need a whole pit crew just to see the concierge at a motel, and we're not done with errands yet.  
  
He sits there for a weirdly long moment. Not checking his phone or anything. I get the urge to check mine, but I get the feeling he's gearing up to ask me something.  
  
Lo and behold: "Hey Van."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You want to be a vampire again?"  
  
We already had that talk, so I just say, "Yeah."  
  
He asks, "Do you have any plans for the end of your human life?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I mean is there anything you want to do as a human now that it's on a time limit?"  
  
"I dunno. Try all the food I haven't tried before? We're in New York. There's plenty of restaurants for every kinda cultural cuisine." I shrug. "I don't really have plans."  
  
"What about having kids?"  
  
I stare. "What, like, right now? In this time frame?"  
  
"No! I'm not coming onto you, Van!"  
  
My eyebrows shoot up. "I didn't --"  
  
"I'm not trying to hit on you, Jesus."  
  
"I didn't think you were. Calm your tits."  
  
He sighs, mutters. "Why am I so bad at talking about this..."  
  
"I'm rubbing off on you. So what are you asking exactly?"  
  
He smooths himself out. "My sister got her tubes tied after she had a kid, my nephew Elliot. The seven-year-old. She decided one kid was enough. But just in case she changed her mind, she had some of them saved."  
  
"Had what now?"  
  
"Her eggs frozen. And we're going to see a doctor today, so now would be the best time."  
  
I process this. I hadn't thought about it before. "I mean -- That -- It'd still set things back, um, on the timeline, nine months minimum..."  
  
"I don't mean right now. Just in case you want one later."  
  
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to do that anyway once I'm undead."  
  
"Surrogate?"  
  
"Oh. Yeah." I think for a few moments. Who would I even ask to be a surrogate? Pretty sure Alexa can't either, as a dracolich, or whatever she counts as now. And who'd be the father? Alexa with another magic ring? Jacob? Anonymous donor?  
  
I finally say, "That's an option. But I don't think I'd do it right away. I... I'll have it as a back-up plan, but not -- I mean. Being human for a while kinda made it clear that, uh, it wasn't being a vampire that was the reason I couldn't take care of a kid. I don't have an income. I'm living off you."  
  
Now Jacob pauses. "Yeah," he admits. "But it is something you want, right? You talked about it, at least."  
  
I focus on the dashboard, staring at the button that pops the glove compartment. "It is. I do. Eventually. Maybe. If I can. I just -- look. Almost everyone else in this group can go live a normal life. Anyone else here can just stop, step back, and go raise a family or whatever."  
  
"I don't know about that," Jacob says. "I can't see myself doing anything else but this."  
  
"But you have that choice. You're legally still a person."  
  
He doesn't say anything to that.  
  
I go on, "Like, you especially. You have money. A family. A place to go back to, whenever you want. You have birth records and legitimate I.D., and the timeline makes sense 'cause you age like a normal human."  
  
"Not all of us. Rune can't."  
  
"Sure she can, once she's 18. The government can't take her anywhere once she's an adult. And she looks like the age she's supposed to be. And... she has her dad now." I sigh. "The point is, I -- right now I'm not -- I'll do it as a back-up plan. I don't wanna do this forever. Monster hunting is --"  
  
"Hell," Jacob says dourly.  
  
"I was gonna say 'boring'. Just gets tedious. I've been doing this for a long time already, and never being in the same place, always having to move on, never having the same people around. I miss having a place to go back to. I'm not against traveling. Vacations. Maybe missions sometimes, I dunno. But someday I want a real home. A place I could raise a kid."  
  
I laugh dryly. "I'd need to do the Chuck thing and fake some legit-looking papers, new birth certificate with an updated birth year, so I could get a job and stuff."  
  
"I'll help you get whatever you need, whenever you decide to do that."  
  
"Thanks." I look down. "It's all just hypothetical anyway. I dunno if a kid is something Alexa would -- Well, I guess it's a lot to ask expecting her to still be around that far in the future anyway."  
  
"I've seen relationships based on less than what you have last a long time."  
  
"Sure, but, I dunno if that's her long-term goal. She's always been about power and collecting power."  
  
He frowns. "You're thinking very little of her if you think she's incapable of being something more than what she's been so far."  
  
"It's not that I think she's incapable. I just maybe shouldn't expect -- You all have your own goals and -- and it's not worth worrying about making new plans right now anyway. Not until after we take care of Lark and --"  
  
"Save the world?"  
  
"Sure. Helping you guys out with your goals. Get back Adrian, get back Basil if we can, whatever. I'm not gonna just ditch you guys to go have a baby. I have to stick around to help you all first."  
  
"To help us get our happy endings."  
  
"Yeah. You deserve it."  
  
Even if that means ending any practical reasons they'd have left to keep me on board.  
  
Jacob says, "So are you ready to go get some baby blood and get your guts scraped out?"  
  
"I'm almost totally positive that's not how they get the eggs, but yes."  
  
We go see Dr. Luna Rose. She's still got big hair, big jewelry, and a big voice. We don't tell her exactly why we need some samples of blood from a human infant and elder, but she agrees anyway. Gives us some of hers too, as she's both human and old. Between all the samples so far (including Jacob, Khulan, and Silas), we have the five bases covered one way or another.  
  
We ask Rose about the egg-freezing thing. She talks me through the procedure, risks, benefits. Usual doctor talk. I agree. She squeezes me into a late-night appointment when nobody else has dibs on the equipment. I try hard to avoid panicking as I get into the hospital gown and lay on the bed with my ankles in stirrups. Goddamn I hate hospitals.  
  
I'll spare you the details. Long story short, tools and needles probe up in places you'd expect, and there's no anesthetic. As happy as I am to have this contingency plan, I'm happy to get the hell outta there and get some rest.  
  
For obvious reasons, Alexa and I don't have sex tonight. I don't say why. I have no idea how she'd respond. I don't wanna start an argument over something that might never happen anyway.  
  
After that, it's off to Naugatuck, Connecticut. Another small Eastern town. Still bigger than Salem. Colder up here too. We're back in snow country.  
  
The boys have a motel room with a bathroom serving as a prison cell. An unconscious Agent Tirabassi is chained to the toilet, half-naked with a trench coat thrown over him like a blanket.  
  
"Jacob, you had a werewolf boyfriend," I say, "so I assume they're not always monster-monsters. They can be perfectly sane and stuff, right?"  
  
"Right. They have more difficulty controlling themselves, but control can be learned."  
  
"Let's hope that goes for super-werewolves, too. So what do we do?"  
  
"His metabolism's going to be running faster now, and he would've spent a lot of energy fighting these two. If we feed him, he'll have an easier time staying in control."  
  
We go out and buy every box of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets in the store, come back and cook 'em in the motel room's microwave. We slide the box across the floor in front of Tirabassi. He's got at least one hand free, and just enough slack on the chains to stand up if he wants. Probably so he'd have the dignity of using the toilet if necessary. Also makes him more dangerous.  
  
I'm standing in the doorway. Everyone but Jacob standing behind me, who's standing in the empty tub. There's not a lotta space.  
  
I prod Tirabassi's leg with my shoe and jump back when he stirs. He zeroes in on the nuggets like a meat-seeking missile.  
  
"This would be the worst time to find out he's a vegetarian," I joke to the others. In the three seconds it takes for me to turn my head and say that, he's shoveled in two fistfuls of nuggets like a chipmunk storing acorns. After he wolfs down (heh) a few boxes of nuggets, he seems ready to talk.  
  
He doesn't remember much. He doesn't clearly remember the fight that got him tied to a toilet. He takes us at our word when we tell him, though.  
  
"Do you remember getting bitten or attacked by any animals?" I ask.  
  
"Yeah, actually," he says. "About two or three weeks ago. I was walking in a park in Iowa. Town called Winterset."  
  
"What did it look like? Standard werewolf, or what? Because apparently your other form is... weird. We're not sure why, or what it is exactly."  
  
"Great to hear. And I don't know. Some big furry animal jumped out and bit me. I didn't see it any clearer than that."  
  
We all make note of where to hunt that one down.  
  
"Have you run into any other supernatural beings since? Gotten cursed or possessed or anything?" I ask.  
  
"Not that I know of." He looks squarely up at me. "I started by following your trail. The locations you mentioned visiting before. I put together a timeline. There was always something strange, some strange death or series of deaths, in or near each of those places. And from there, I found more, and more."  
  
"Mm."  
  
"I used my resources as a federal agent, at first, until this hunt was consuming all my time. I was dismissed from my job. I've been using what I had left since then, trying to track you down, trying to figure out what was going on." He sighs. "I don't understand how you managed to slip away in the first place. There was a pretty solid case against you for impersonating an officer and carrying concealed without a license."  
  
"We had a good lawyer."  
  
"Of course. Every time. Fucking lawyers."  
  
I smirk and laugh a little. "Only one of us did that."  
  
Khulan says, "Oh, you're out there fucking everyone, but I'm the one who has to get a lecture?"  
  
I just stare at her.  
  
"What?" she says.  
  
I keep staring.  
  
Tirabassi rattles his chains a little. "Can we keep on task?"  
  
"Yeah," Khulan says. "What he said."  
  
"Oh, no," I say. "You brought this up. You brought this on yourself. We can do this right now, Khulan. I mean, I talked to you in private on purpose, but if we wanna air things out right now and make it awkward, let's do it."  
  
Tirabassi says, "Let's not."  
  
Khulan huffs at me. "What? I don't see any difference."  
  
"I already told you the difference. You need a refresher? It's totally different when two unrelated consenting adults go to a pick-up bar or something, than when an adult hits on a teen and everyone else in the room at the same time."  
  
Rune looks between me and Khulan. "What lecture?"  
  
Khulan says, "They told me not to 'get fresh with you'."  
  
"No, I warned her not to do anything to hurt you, specifically," I say. "Like doing shit and then hitting the road right after."  
  
Jacob speaks up, still standing in the shower. "I was the one who told Khulan not to get involved at all. It's creepy and inappropriate. You're still a minor."  
  
Rune glares. "I wish you would just trust me to make my own decisions."  
  
"We do," I say.  
  
"Do we?" Jacob says.  
  
I shrug. "I trust her more than Khulan, who's barely more than a stranger to me."  
  
Tirabassi sighs loudly. Zeke, Mike, Silas and Alexa are looking around at anything in the motel room except us talking.  
  
Rune looks, for lack of a better phrase, downright impetuous. "Maybe I'm still old enough to decide for myself. Maybe after everything I've been through, I want to have some consensual sex. Maybe I want to just go get a room with Khulan tonight."  
  
Jacob says, "Not happening."  
  
"How is it any of your business? I can consent to it if I want to."  
  
"I'm down," Khulan says.  
  
Tirabassi says, "Guys. Please. Can you just save the teenage romance drama after-school special for after we take care of the more pressing problem, like the fact I'm some kind of new breed of werewolf nobody's apparently seen before?"  
  
Jacob looks at Rune. "We'll talk later." Then he glares at Khulan and says nothing to her. Both girls grumble.  
  
Jacob looks to Tirabassi next. "Alright, Finch, let's try to find out what you really are."  
  
Tirabassi groans. Between being called Tiramisu and Atticus Finch, this guy's got name problems I don't envy.  
  
"I'm going to need some of your blood," Jacob goes on. "You're not getting it back."  
  
"Thanks, but having it returned to me wasn't my top concern with that request. As long as it's not a lethal amount, sure."  
  
Jacob takes a small blood sample. Tirabassi shows the usual fast healing of a werewolf. We don't have microscopes or anything, so Jacob just sits down and magically meditates at it.  
  
I ask Tirabassi if, during his research on me, he met anyone named Charles Frances Hewitt, or any variations on those names.  
  
"Yes, actually," Tirabassi says. "One of the first places I looked was your home town. I had your driver's license number, after all. It wasn't hard to track down your old home, your family records, things like that. I found out Charles had some connection to the Renards going way back, not to mention being the sole beneficiary."  
  
"Mm."  
  
"I was surprised he was still alive, to be honest. It took a lot of digging, but I did find him."  
  
"New Mexico?"  
  
"No, South Dakota."  
  
"When?"  
  
"About a month, maybe a month and a half ago."  
  
I take mental note. That's more recent than my own search results. "Did you actually see him?"  
  
"I couldn't find any other way to get in touch with him. Too reclusive, no social media. Nothing public that I could find, anyway. So I went out to his house and asked him about you and your family."  
  
"What did he say?"  
  
"Not much. I should say, he said a lot, but not much that was actually informative. He led me around in conversational circles. He was an asshole."  
  
"Yeah, he's like that. He didn't say anything about me?"  
  
"He sort of agreed with the implication that he might have been acquainted with you at some point, and that's all I got."  
  
I inwardly mull this over. My idle vengeance quest is more urgent than I thought. Uncle Chuck's been questioned by a fed about me right before I start snooping around to find him too. If he hasn't gone deeper underground by now, it's 'cause he's gonna head me off at the pass to make sure I haven't been wagging my tongue about his nature. Which I have been. I better make sure to cut this loose end fast.  
  
Jacob finishes his mystical forensics by passing out cold on the floor.  
  
The girls and I get him on a bed. When he comes to, he tells us Tirabassi's blood itself is wrong and unnatural. Eldritch. Looking at it magically didn't reveal the usual little bundle of blood cells. It looked like a cross-hatch pattern of red on black, and as the more he looked, the more the black expanded to reveal itself as millions of eyes looking back. He says it might not be the literal appearance, if we had a microscope to check it out, but that's the "essence" of it.  
  
"Maybe he's still demon-tainted," I say. "What's a demonic kind of wolf? Hellhound?"  
  
Jacob shakes his head. "I also checked him for signs of demonic energy. That was my first thought too. It's not that. This is something else. Ezekiel, Michael, is this familiar at all to either of you?"  
  
They both say no.  
  
"Silas? Did you ever encounter anything like this?"  
  
Silas also says no.  
  
I ask, "Is it actually possible for two different types of monsters to... cross-breed? Combine? Or do werewolves just have different bloodlines like vampires do?"  
  
Jacob says, "I've only ever heard of one type of werewolf before."  
  
"God, I hope our anti-werewolf inoculations still work. By the way, Zeke, Mike..."  
  
"We've had our shots," Zeke says.  
  
"And I'm a siren, so..." Mike says.  
  
"Yeah, but if it turns out werewolves, or at least this kinda werewolf, can infect other monsters, better not take any chances," I say. "The last thing we need is a man-eating monster that can lull you to sleep first so you can't fight back."  
  
"That's what sirens do. You're describing sirens."  
  
"You do that?"  
  
"No, of course not. But your typical siren does. That's what they do. Haven't you heard the legends? Luring in sailors to crash ships on the rocks?"  
  
"Yeah, but I also heard they were like mermaids, and you're neither."  
  
While the others try to research whatever the hell Tirabassi is, I ask him for Chuck's address. It's on his phone. I ask for the phone and the password. He's not really in a position to say no, so he doesn't, but he asks for a more comfortable seating arrangement in exchange for cooperating. I say that's not up to me.  
  
After a lotta debate, the group decides to move Tirabassi to a chair. Still bound.  
  
I take his phone. I promise to give it back, which is true, but I don't tell him I have every intention of copying all his files first. On Chuck, on me, on everything.  
  
The password is 1973.  
  
"Is that your birth year?" I say. "What kinda fed were you? Not using your birthday for passwords is like, Info-Sec 101. It's barely better than using 12345."  
  
Jacob says, "Which is barely better than having no password at all."  
  
Rune shrugs at us. "I don't. I don't lock my phone."  
  
Jacob and I look a little horrified at her. He says, "We're going to have a talk about that later."  
  
We question Tirabassi some more to narrow down the time frame and eliminate other possible monsters being involved. We describe and name Dr. Thomas Lark to him. Not familiar. Whew. Then we all decide to leave Tirabassi with Zeke and Mike while we hunt down the lead in Iowa. By the time we're ready to go, I've copied over all of his files to my phone (or at least to my own Dropbox account).  
  
Once again our team has a packed car and two on a motorcycle. The debate over where to put Tirabassi (and our inability to haul him with us anyway) gives me a thought.  
  
"Hey, Jacob. I was thinking we might want more room while traveling, and... Like, it's your money so if you say no that's fine, I understand," I say.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"You remember how Tracy got that trailer before she left? I think another one of those might be useful. Maybe if someone's selling one on Craigslist, or another lemon that'd be cheap enough to fix up, or something." I start to ramble, a little nervously. Kinda like when I asked my grandparents for my own car. "Nothing new and expensive. Nothing fancy. And it might save some money in the long run, er, I know we'd be spending more on gas but we would be saving on a hotel room for me and Alexa, we could just park it instead..."  
  
To my relief, he nods. "I can look around. Make some calls, see what's out there. We need a better place to patch up when we're injured anyway. Draws less attention if we're not constantly checking into hospitals."  
  
"Yeah. I can leave, like, the first aid stuff in there, maybe get some medical equipment on sale to put in there too."  
  
I feel pretty guilty to ask Jacob for such a huge favor though. I make a resolution to only buy what's absolutely necessary from now on. Not even dollar store books. Wallet's on lockdown against anything I don't need to survive.  
  
That went a lot better than asking my grandparents for a car though. They'd said no. They didn't say it explicitly, but they figured I wouldn't be in driving shape for very long anyway. Not that they were wrong.  
  
Visiting Salem really gave the old memories tree a good shake, and sitting in the back seat of the car, waiting for files to load while I crawl through Tirabassi's files, some old memories pop up. My grandparents, they weren't bad people, and they did their best with surprise custody that turned into a permanent arrangement.  
  
They were from another generation though, more than parents would've been. That disconnect put some distance between us even when I wasn't aware of it. There were too many family secrets all around. Everyone hiding shit from each other outta shame, worrying about bad reactions. A vampire. A questioned sexuality. Anything about the Yıldırıms.  
  
Maybe working by Louis and Gladys's example isn't a great plan when it comes to relating to young people.  
  
By the time we stop at another motel, Jacob's tired enough to actually go straight to sleep. Scrying wears him out faster. Gives me a good chance to talk to Rune again.  
  
"Hey, Rune," I say. "Uh. I wanted to say sorry again. About earlier."  
  
She looks confused at me. "What?"  
  
"I mean, you're right, it's not really any of our business if you decide to..."  
  
"Oh, that." She shrugs. "I don't know. I'm not actually planning to. I was just mad. I just wish you guys could trust me enough not to have to go around behind my back, warning people away."  
  
"You're right. I'm sorry."  
  
She sighs. "It's okay. I just... It's not like I can't take care of myself even if Khulan or anyone else tries to take advantage of me."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"It happened already." She hefts her bat around a bit. "That's why I'm even out here. Because of Nick trying to hurt me. Remember?"  
  
I try to remember that story as little as possible. It makes me feel sick and angry, even though Nick's dead.  
  
"...Yeah."  
  
She glances off. "Is... that all?"  
  
"Well. No. I wanted to say that, um. Well, look, the lecture with Khulan. Like I told her, I got a pretty embarrassing lecture from my grandparents too. Kind of a rite of passage, I guess. Ya gotta get an awkward talk from an adult eventually. But I didn't tell her not to date you if she really wants to. It's up to you, whatever you wanna do, right? If you wanna get a room, well, Jacob's out cold so he can't stop you now."  
  
"I... I don't think I really want to... do anything... right now. Maybe just watch movies together."  
  
I shrug. "Then that's fine too. It's up to you. I won't stop you, I won't tell him, whatever you choose. I just, um. Well. My grandparents were from a different time. They wanted me to be, y'know, chaste and modest and save myself for marriage and all that crap."  
  
Rune makes a face. Probably at the very thought of anyone telling her to be modest.  
  
"Yeah," I agree. "Heh, and uh, kinda was all pointless to tell me in the end, since I was, well, dying, but also, y'know. I didn't know I was gay yet, and... maybe I woulda figured things out about myself sooner while I was alive in the first place, if I felt like I was allowed to even think about those things. I never talked to them about it. I still dunno what they'd think. So... my point is, I don't wanna push you away, and make you feel like you have to hide any part of your life, or feel ashamed or think I'm gonna react badly or..."  
  
I shrug awkwardly. "Anything you ever wanna talk about, I'm here, no judgment. This, or anything."  
  
She nods, says thanks, and we head off to separate rooms. She gets a room with Khulan. I hear movies playing on the TV all night long. I think they fall asleep on a Neverending Story marathon.  
  
\---  
  
Winterset, Iowa looks a little like Salem, but even smaller. Home of the super-werewolf. Apparently. Or at least a spot where a super-werewolf passed through a few weeks ago. Tirabassi couldn't narrow it down any better for us, and we have no crime scene.  
  
I hit up Google and local papers at the library, looking for clues. There've been some fatal animal attacks, some disappearances, all spread out across months, maybe years, and not in high enough numbers to even get the real feds snooping. Sometimes on the full moon, sometimes not. Could be your normal case of townies getting lost in the woods.  
  
I pick out the most recent missing persons case as a starting point. Zakary Wade disappeared three months ago on the full moon, last seen walking home from work. Never made it home. No family except two siblings, Monika and Karl.  
  
Khulan and I go to the house in black suits and knock. Monika answers. I introduce myself as Special Agent Janet Princeton (after Janet Jackson and Prince, of course). Khulan is Abigail Hastings.  
  
We run through the usual questions. The last time Monika saw Zakary was about a week and a half ago, a little while before he went missing. They didn't live together. He didn't have any enemies, guy got along with everyone. Wasn't showing any odd behavior.  
  
On a long-shot, I ask if he got mixed up in the occult lately, or had any especially weird acquaintances.  
  
"Now that you mention it," Monika says. "Not the occult part, I mean. But Zak had a weird friend. Amos Green."  
  
"Weird how?" I ask.  
  
"It's hard to put my finger on it exactly. He was just a guy one step out of time with everyone else, you know? He didn't take good care of himself. Too skinny. Didn't comb his hair. His shirt was always buttoned wrong or something, like he didn't know how to dress himself or just didn't care."  
  
"Where can we find Amos?"  
  
"I don't know. I didn't see him often. Maybe 'friend' is too strong of a word. He was just hanging around my brother sometimes."  
  
I show her photos of the other missing people from the past few months, ask if she knows them. She shakes her head. We thank her, I give her my number, tell her to call if anything turns up, and we leave.  
  
As usual with these questionings, one of us always has a phone on the line with a conference call to the group, muted in a shirt pocket. Best way we got until we can buy some bugs and wiretaps that fell off a truck. Too bad Jacob's shadiest dealer disappeared.  
  
The rest of the party heard the whole chat. Jacob's already googled Amos Green. Turns out there's some famous dead painter by the same name. Probably not our guy.  
  
A little more digging turns up the likely suspect. There's an Amos Green living in Centerville, Iowa. Disappointingly, Centerville isn't in the center of Iowa.  
  
There's a photo, and this guy looks like someone you'd describe as weird-looking if you were being polite. He looks like the ugly lovechild of Steve Buschemi and Benedict Cumberbatch. Like God finished making humans and stuck together all the leftover parts so they wouldn't go to waste.  
  
We stick in Winterset to ask around more first. We talk to the families of the other missing or dead people. We talk to the cops. We narrow down where they all happened to a nice, narrow strip of a shady commercial district. The cops say they already questioned everyone in the area, and nobody was talking, but we don't wanna leave yet until we turn over every stone.  
  
The first problem is that this isn't a neighborhood where people talk to cops, period. The FBI schtick won't work here. I change into something casual.  
  
Jacob says, "I don't have anything casual enough to fit in here."  
  
It's true. He only wears suits.  
  
"You can borrow one of my aloha shirts," I say.  
  
"No thanks, I'd rather just take a rope and hang myself instead."  
  
"Just say you're a tourist passing through on your way to the, uh, I dunno, what's in Iowa?"  
  
"John Wayne museum," Khulan says. "Right here in Winterset."  
  
"Who the hell's John Wayne?" Rune says.  
  
By now I'm used to her never knowing about anything that happened before 2005. "An old dead actor. He played a cowboy in a million Western movies. Wouldn't recommend. They were pretty sexist."  
  
"And racist," Jacob says.  
  
"So why is there a museum for him?" she asks.  
  
Shrug.  
  
In the end, Jacob leaves off his tie and jacket and untucks his shirt. Even this much looks painful to him.  
  
We all split up to cover more ground. We question everyone we can find. Most really didn't see anything. A few might've, but they don't wanna talk. Only this guy known as Stoner Jenkins talks. Says he saw a big hulking wolfman running around once. He followed the wolfman for a while, until said wolfman disappeared into the woods to the north.  
  
"What did it look like, other than a wolfman?" I ask.  
  
"I don't know, man, like a big wolf walking on two legs. Like in every werewolf movie ever. You know?" Jenkins says. "Wolfy face, big teeth and claws, fur, tail."  
  
We leave him to his toking.  
  
"So that sounds a standard werewolf," Jacob says.  
  
"It's something, I guess," I say. "Either way, worth hunting, if it's killing people."  
  
"I have a theory that Atticus lied about being bitten."  
  
"Are you sure it's not demons?"  
  
"I didn't detect any signs of possession."  
  
"What about mind control?" I say. "Like with that girl McKayla up in New York. The demons were remotely controlling all the people in the church."  
  
"Their eyes were pure black while being controlled. Atticus's eyes are normal. It's not demons, trust me."  
  
Jacob calls Zeke to check in. Atticus is still stable. No changes. No news is good news.  
  
We book a room for the night in Winterset. The next morning, Rune tells us she had a vision. Maybe. It felt like a vision to her, but it didn't make sense like the other visions.  
  
There was a blank grey area, and then a red ribbon of light or color passing through the silhouettes of people one after another. Then a green ribbon joined it, they swirled around and formed a shape like a double helix strand until forming the silhouette of another person.  
  
And that was that.  
  
Everyone looks at Rune in confusion.  
  
"Yeah," she says. "The last Fate just showed me what the werewolves were planning to do if we didn't stop them. This time I have no idea what the hell it means."  
  
"The last Fate?" Jacob asks.  
  
"...Oh. Yeah. Fate died. There's a new Fate now."  
  
"Fate can die?" I ask. "How?"  
  
"Old age," Rune says. "The last time I did the thing where I get in contact with Fate it was someone new there. Usually I concentrate and... time freezes, and I'm in this other place, and an old man would be sitting at a desk to answer my questions. The last time I tried, he wasn't there. Instead it was a girl with purple hair. She didn't seem to know what was going on, who I was, or anything. The only answers I have are from this letter the old Fate left behind."  
  
Rune gets out a hand-written letter and we pass it around to read it. I compare the handwriting to the photo of the note that was tied to Rune's bat when it reappeared. It's the same script.  
  
"Dear Rune (or Lily),  
   
I am sorry to inform you that if you are receiving this letter it means I am no longer with you. Some of us don't have the added benefit of massively extended lifetimes. But I wanted to leave you something before I did my last.  
  
I returned your bat to you, and then I returned to my deathbed. I assure you it was quite peaceful, friends and family abound and that I am happy with my time on Earth. I also wanted to mention this because I wanted to assure you that there always is a happy ending, even for those of us who are chosen to carry things like fate on our shoulders. and I wanted to assure you that the path you are on is the correct one, and that I am sure when the time comes you will make the right decision.  
  
After all, you are our last hope.  
   
Sincerely, Fate."  
  
Once we've all read it, I say, "So, if one Embodiment can get old and die, but Lark can't, or couldn't, what if Alexander Walker breaking Lark's soul into little pieces actually made Lark immortal? I'm kinda hoping that's it, because then maybe Lark's been screwing himself over with out knowing it by gathering up his soul pieces again."  
  
"Except it's also making him more powerful," Rune says.  
  
"Sure, it was a trade-off. Live forever at a fraction of your power. Or have a ton of power just for one normal lifetime. Maybe it wasn't a bad thing that he got the essence out of you, if it makes him vulnerable to death."  
  
"Like Voldemort's Horcuxes?" Khulan says.  
  
"Hope so," I say. "And he's shooting himself in the foot by emptying out the... Larkruxes."  
  
Rune says, "I still don't know what that vision's supposed to mean."  
  
We all mull it over. We theorize that the red ribbon represents some kind of hereditary bloodline, since lycanthropy can be infected. Or maybe just the chain of infection normally. And then the green ribbon could mean the introduction of some other strain infecting Tirabassi.  
  
Jacob says, "It was green, so maybe that's literally supposed to mean Amos Green?"  
  
For now, we drive out as far as we can to the north woods, where Jenkins said the wolfman ran. Jacob mass-enchants our weapons. I swap out my ammo for silver bullets. Rune wraps a silver chain around her bat. We all set north on foot into the forest. There's light snow on the ground, less of it as we go further and more of the canopy blocks the ground from the sky.  
  
Eventually we find a ramshackle cabin, way out there away from any roads or other signs of human life. Even without werewolf reports, this would be a great spot to be a serial murder and never get caught. Pretty sure if the whole group screamed as loud as we could right now, nobody would hear us at all.  
  
Fun thoughts.  
  
Jacob scries on the cabin before we approach. He sees an unfamiliar man lounging in a messy, shitty hovel.  
  
"So what's the plan?" he says.  
  
"There's still a chance this isn't the werewolf," I say. "He could just have a creepy cabin in the woods. I don't wanna just kill him on sight, just in case. So maybe we should like... uh, just hold him down and nick him with a knife a little to see if he has super healing?"  
  
"Breaking in and assaulting a possible innocent is the best option?" Jacob says.  
  
"Better than murdering him." I shrug. "Let's just look around and question him first, at least."  
  
Jacob and I go up to the door, while Khulan and Rune sneak around the outside. I lean my rifle against the wall out of sight, and knock on the door. A messy, shitty-looking guy opens the door to his messy, shitty-looking cabin.  
  
We ask him who he is. He says his name is James Black. We say we're feds (we're back in our suits), we've been looking for the missing people, we think they were attacked by wild animals, maybe even rabid animals, and maybe he can help us find them. Playing him up as a helpful witness, not a suspected serial killer.  
  
"Have you seen any, uh, odd-looking animals, or animals behaving oddly, lately?" I ask. "Or heard any strange noises?"  
  
"No." And he closes the door.  
  
Fine. I sling my rifle back on. Black closes the curtains. I walk around the cabin to look around. I find huge canine paw prints with huge claw tracks. I text the group that the guy's lying about not knowing about weird animals lately. Even if he's not the werewolf, he's helping to protect one.  
  
I go knock on the door again and yell about the tracks. No answer. A second later, I hear glass shattering at the back. I sprint off that way just as Jacob blasts his way through the front door with ice.  
  
Rune and Khulan are ahead of me, chasing Black deeper into the woods. Khulan trips, falls, Rune keeps going, I pass Khulan by and start to catch up.  
  
"Stop, you're under arrest!" I yell.  
  
"You're not a real fucking cop!" Black yells back.  
  
"Well you're not a real fucking human!"  
  
Rune gets close enough to let loose a crimson lightning bolt, catching him square in the back. He stumbles, smoking, before getting his feet again. I swing my rifle around front and fire, hitting a tree somewhere past him instead.  
  
The next moment, he's woven through the crazy thick forest before I can bring my barrel down again. Rune disappears after him. I lose sight of both, and just keep running blind until I break through the tangle of branches and spot them again.  
  
Black tries to zig-zag like a wild animal, Rune and I both swerve in the perfect direction to close the distance as he turns. I fire my rifle at the same moment she fires off another lightning bolt.  
  
We both miss. In the split-second of the mixed lightning and muzzle flashes, Black's disappeared again. We run for a little ways, but there's no trail, nothing to follow, too much underbrush and rocky ground. We don't even hear him anymore. We curse in frustration and go back to the cabin.  
  
The others found a mass grave in the meantime. Ten human bodies in various states of decay, all mauled to death as far as they can tell, buried in shallow graves around the cabin.  
  
There's nothing left to do at this spot. I snatch some small-bill cash from inside, and we all walk back to the vehicles and drive back into town. Jacob finds a payphone and calls the cops, dropping an anonymous tip about the bodies. At least the families can get closure now.  
  
We're not giving up on Black yet. Jacob scries again, and reports that Black's getting into a cab to escape town. By now, Jacob's tired out again from using all that heavy magic in one day (the brain stuff like scrying and enchanting wears him out fastest), so he takes shotgun while I take the wheel. We blast outta town and head for the highway, eyes peeled for cabs.  
  
Doesn't take long. The road's clear except that one cab. Khulan guns her motorcycle ahead of the car, Rune riding behind her as usual.  
  
All we gotta do is follow the car until the cab driver has to make a pit stop or Black runs outta money for the fare. Then we shoo the cab away, jump Black, and boom.  
  
Just as I'm thinking this, Rune shoots lightning. A back tire on the cab explodes. The cab starts screeching and losing control. The driver pulls over to the gravel sidebar in a hurry. Black hops out of the passenger seat, prepared to book it on foot again. Before he gets the chance, Rune beams him in the skull with her baseball bat as the motorcycle sails by.  
  
I brake and throw open the driver's-side door, grab my rifle and jump out. The bike's stopped, Rune's on foot, bat raised. Black stands up, bleeding from what should be a mortal injury but isn't. He roars in anger and shifts, hulking out as a classic snarling wolfman, and he charges at Rune.  
  
My rifle barrel's steady on the car door hinge. I fire. The silver, magically-enhanced sniper rifle bullet detonates his head like a meat grenade. What's left of the body falls, already dead and already reverted to human form before it hits the pavement.  
  
I'm feeling pretty proud of that kill. It makes up for losing him in the forest. Jacob looks pissed though, but not at me.  
  
Rune and Khulan go over to the cab, knock on the windows, say something I can't hear to the driver. There's no response. Jacob writes a note and leaves it tucked under the windshield wiper, along with $200 in cash to pay for damages... and silence.  
  
\---  
  
We're out of Winterset as fast as legally possible after committing a little highway murder in front of a civilian witness. We stop at an isolated little motel halfway between Winterset and Centerville.  
  
While we're all still in one room, before we have a chance to disperse, Jacob goes up to Rune and says, "We need to talk about what happened," in a hard tone.  
  
"What about it?" Rune says.  
  
"You endangered a civilian, exposed them to monsters, and implicated us all in a murder."  
  
"What do you mean I endangered a civilian? I stopped the monster from getting away."  
  
"By blowing out the cab's tire. What if it had gone off the road? Rolled over into a ditch?"  
  
"Well, it didn't."  
  
"Let me put this another way. Just because you can throw a grenade into a crowd doesn't mean you should. You might take out your one target, but you'll also hurt everyone else around them."  
  
"I didn't throw a grenade. I shot lightning. And I didn't hurt anyone but the monster." She sighs and says bitterly, "I just wanted to help. Besides, it's not like I'm the one who killed him. Van did that."  
  
"Van was forced to clean up the mess you made."  
  
They both look at me. I cough awkwardly. I was eavesdropping, by which I mean I was been standing nearby openly watching them, unlike everyone else who's either left the room or pretending not to be in it.  
  
"The thing about 'exposing' him to monsters isn't what bothers me," I say. "I mean, we've had to kill monsters in front of civilians constantly before, and I don't really care if people know about them."  
  
"See?!" Rune says.  
  
"Buuut I am worried about the murder part. Like yeah, we had to kill the werewolf. I just hope the cab driver saw the fact he was a werewolf and takes that into consideration instead of snitching on us. And if he does, hopefully he didn't see our license places, or saw us close enough to I.D. us."  
  
Rune says bitterly, "I guess I just fucked up again."  
  
Jacob mutters about needing to change the plates now. He walks out without another word.  
  
I cough and look at Rune again. "I'm not mad. What's done is done."  
  
"But apparently I was just putting everyone at risk and almost killing innocent people."  
  
"Everything we do carries a risk. This worked out pretty well. We killed the werewolf, we didn't kill the civilian. As long as he accepts that what we killed was a werewolf and doesn't report us, it's all good. We can't really be worrying about what-ifs and what could have gone wrong."  
  
We say goodnight, and I head out to go to my room. Jacob's outside by the car, scrolling on his phone with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other.  
  
"I thought you didn't smoke," I say.  
  
"I don't."  
  
"You say that while you're smoking right now."  
  
"I don't know about that."  
  
"'Kay. You said your mom would kill someone if they smoked in her house. You found that out 'cause you got busted smoking at home, didn't you?" I smirk.  
  
He mumbles something evasive about it.  
  
The next day we head out again. We detour a little on the way to pick up my new RV. New is an entirely relative term here. It's old, dinged up, and rust-streaked. But it's mine! We get it outfitted with an ad-hoc infirmary with second-hand medical supplies from another mysterious source. Jacob casts general protective wards over the whole thing. I thank him again.  
  
When our budding caravan rolls off, I realize I'm the one in charge of the radio. An RV's engine and rattling chassis make it harder to hear than a sleek sedan, but whatever. The real bummer is that the chorus of people to sing along to oldies and showtunes with has shrunk to zero. Alexa rides with me of course, but she doesn't know a lot about pop culture from any decade.  
  
I miss having the trio in one car. The trio and Alexa, that'd be ideal. Oh well.  
  
I leave the radio off for a while. "Hey Alexa, waddya want for Christmas?"  
  
She looks surprised. "I don't know. I never thought about it. I never really did holidays before."  
  
"Think of something. It's December. I'm not religious, but I love schmaltz and glitter. And I wanna get you something."  
  
"Alright. Then it's fair to ask you the same thing. What do you want?"  
  
"I don't know either," I laugh. "Um, I'll never complain about new clothes. Or something practical like those little earbud headphones. Then I can listen to all the disco I want in public and nobody'll bitch about it."  
  
At the next diner and pit stop, I discreetly pester Rune to make sure she's making a wish list like I told her to before. Then I discreetly ask Whitney Baker for Jacob's wish list. I already know he's too much of a melodramatic martyr to directly tell people what he wants, and I can't wait around for him to passive-aggressively sigh his wishes at me.  
  
I won't have to dip into his money for gifts after looting cash from Black's cabin. As long as nobody asks for expensive shit, anyway. If anybody wants ipods they can fend for themselves.  
  
We find Amos Green's address easily on the outskirts of town. We park out of sight, and Khulan and I go up to knock on the door, again posing as FBI agents. This time I'm Stevie Lennox (y'know, like Nicks, Wonder, and Annie) and she's Kate Arrow.  
  
Amos Green answers, looking even more startling in person. The camera adds ten pounds, but he doesn't seem to have ten pounds to lose. The camera also doesn't do justice for his radioactive green eyes.  
  
We introduce ourselves, say we're looking into the missing persons cases, and ask to come in. He lets us and he takes a seat on the sofa.  
  
We tell him he may be one of the last people to have seen Zakary Wade. Amos agrees knowing him. I ask why Amos bothered making such a long trip to visit a guy in a town that far away.  
  
"Why not? He's my friend," Amos says.  
  
This guy is more spaced out than any stoner I've ever met. Every time we ask him something, he just stares off at nothing for anywhere from ten seconds to two minutes. I ask him about a supernatural being or theory, he contemplates the ceiling and says, "Those exist too? Huh."  
  
Every. Single. Time. GOD.  
  
After roughly one thousand years, we learn jack and shit from him.  
  
Okay, we learn some things. Or the absence of things, at least. He doesn't recognize James Black, any of the missing people, or Atticus Tirabassi. A 'not true' is still an answer. Just not a useful one.  
  
At some point he scratches at the back of his neck. His hand comes away with what looks like radioactive green goop on it.  
  
"You've got a little green on you," I say.  
  
"So I do," he agrees. And he gets up to go to the bathroom.  
  
I pull out my phone and start texting to the others. "Guys. Please. Do something. Anything. I'm going to go crazy on this guy. I swear."  
  
Amos returns a minute later after apparently having only washed his hands and done nothing else. He sits back down, then a minute after that jumps up suddenly, looking around the room as if warily watching a bee. He mutters something, and then starts moving around quickly, as if said bee started chasing him. He backs up into a bedroom, then returns calmly like nothing happened.  
  
"So, what was that?" I say.  
  
"Someone was watching," he says.  
  
Jacob texts me to tell me he was scrying on Amos just then, and something about Amos's bedroom blocks the magical signal.  
  
"Yes, it does," Amos says, aloud.  
  
Clearly if we wanna have this guy answer our questions promptly, we gotta make private calls or texts around him, since he's so keen on replying to shit not actually directed at him.  
  
After some confusing mix of group texting, individual texting, and having Amos respond to those texts out loud, we decide to stop driving ourselves nuts and just convene in his house. Jacob and Rune show up and walk in.  
  
Jacob informs us that there's some kind of weird glowing pattern on Amos' back, like a sort of lattice. Not runes, but something similar. Rune asks ifs he can see it. Amos says no. She keeps trying to peek anyway. He keeps his shirt firmly on his torso.  
  
We tell him the whole story, or what's relevant anyway. Tirabassi got bit by Black, Black was a regular werewolf but somehow Tirabassi's not. Amos is the only other supernatural being we've found in the area, and already has some kind of connection to the case.  
  
At this point we're not worried about blowing our cover. Even if this guy tells anyone about us or what we've told him, he has such a reputation as a weirdo nobody would believe him anyway.  
  
Amos says he doesn't really know what's going on but is willing to help us find out. He asks us to bring Tirabassi to meet him in person. We agree, with the caveat Tirabassi has to agree too. And Amos has to be willing to wait. Amos says sure. Eventually.  
  
We call Zeke and Mike, update them on the situation, ask for a pick-up at a midway point. They ask Tirabassi, he agrees, they agree, we're all agreed. Jacob goes to make the pick-up. The rest of us loiter in the trailer or Amos's house, keeping an eye on him.  
  
Rune keeps trying to catch him shirtless, which would sound a lot worse in any other context. Amos gets annoyed. It's a miracle. The first emotion he's shown other than "huh?"  
  
I swear to god if this guy turns out to just be high as balls and not even supernatural...  
  
Jacob informs us over a group call - away from Amos - that he has some info on what Amos really is, and what that wacky blood sample means. Amos is something called a 'Horror'. Eldritch monstrosity from an outer dimension. Super rare, super unpredictable. No real rules, no set weaknesses, no normal human or even normal monster behavior.  
  
"I've fought one before," Jacob says. "It didn't go great."  
  
"How did Tirabassi become, what, half-Horror?" I ask. "Is it contagious?"  
  
"It seems like it."  
  
"But they never even met. How'd that happen?"  
  
"My best guess is that when Tirabassi was infected with lycanthropy, Amos was in town, and his presence altered the infection," Jacob says. "Horrors have a tendency to warp reality in their immediate vicinity just by being there, intentionally or not."  
  
"...Cool. Are we all at risk now? Do we have to inoculate against Cthulhu? Wolfhulu? The Cthulflu?"  
  
"First off, that's terrible and you need to stop naming things. Second... I don't know."  
  
"Cool, cool."  
  
A few uneventful days go by until Jacob gets back, pulling up outside the house. Rune, Khulan and I stand ready with Amos as he opens the door.  
  
Tirabassi walks up, the two of them getting a weird, dazed look, moving towards each other like it's the slo-mo reunion at the end of a cheesy romance movie. Any moment, I'm expecting them to say, "I thought you went back to your fiancee!" "I thought you were still in a coma!"  
  
Something about the intensity of Amos's stare is too unsettling to let him keep walking. I try to hold him back, and Jacob does the same with Tirabassi, and then all hell breaks loose as their gazes turn into glares, and the two eldritch monsters try to kill each other.  
  
Jacob's tries to capture Tirabassi in ice. Tirabassi's not himself, not human anymore. He goes wolf-mode, a huge, mangy beastman, his limbs and body stretched too much, his face looking half-skeletal, and then tentacle pseudopods sprout outta his torso and whip around like snakes on acid.  
  
I and everyone else try to beat Amos back, Khulan's shooting her bow, I'm shooting my rifle, Rune's shooting her lightning. Amos starts throwing us around with flashes of green light and crazy psychic powers. I make the mistake of sapping Amos with my magic, and it feels like every bad opioid trip I've ever had, all at once.  
  
The house is getting wrecked like a china shop, walls and ceilings coming down on us. Jacob barely saves our bacon with an instant igloo as half the place collapses completely, and we scramble out in the nick of time, because then it blows up.  
  
It's full monster truck rally chaos when Amos goes nuclear. The guy literally explodes like an atom bomb in a big blast wave of bright green energy. There's nothing left of the house but flattened rubble, like it got poked by the finger of god.  
  
As we're all lying around gathering our senses after getting bowled over in a ten-pin strike, the cloud of green energy gathers together and flies straight for an unconscious Tirabassi. Jacob sits up and casts something, putting up a magic bubble to block the light. It fritters for a second before turning and flying away in the opposite direction.  
  
That'll bite us in the ass later.  
  
Tirabassi's back to human form. We rush him into the RV and speed outta town before we have to deal with all the sirens rushing toward the scene.  
  
By the time we meet up with Zeke & Mike, Tirabassi's awake, healed and sane again. He can't explain what came over him. We tell the boys what happened, and leave the werewolf with them before driving off for South Dakota.  
  
The last known location of Uncle Chuck, the vampire that sired me.


	18. Dead Man's Party

By the midpoint of December, we arrive in South Dakota where Uncle Chuck's allegedly holed up, according to Tirabassi's files. There's a mansion on a hill the old vampire was last seen at. It's overlooking the whole area, surrounded by a stone wall with a single gate. You can take the French Lord outta the dark ages, but he'll find new castles anyway.  
  
We recon down the street with the building in sight. Jacob scries around the place, tells us there's magical warding set up, but he doesn't know what it wards against.  
  
"Do the wards extend upward?" Khulan asks. "If not, we could do some sick motorcycle flips over the gate."  
  
"The building is on a hill."  
  
"Okay. Guys, we're going to need a very big ramp. I have a plan."  
  
Jacob turns to Silas. "Can you still turn invisible?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Can you scout around the mansion and see the other side? Don't try to get in. You won't see the wards, and they might hurt you."  
  
Silas claps once, turning invisible. He reappears a while later and tells us there's one other entrance, a back door on the fence.  
  
The team moves up to circle around. No security cams. Without any better options right now, we start to climb the fence. Khulan gets over first and opens the fence gate. Jacob, Silas and I walk through. Alexa and Rune bonk into the invisible barrier.  
  
"Not again. Fuck!" Alexa punches it.  
  
Jacob looks at her. "Can you at least start a storm in case things get bad in there?"  
  
She sighs. "Yeah, I can do perimeter control."  
  
He looks at Rune next. "And how are you not able to get in?"  
  
"I don't know!" Rune says. She zaps the barrier with red lightning.  
  
"Maybe it's because you both have lightning powers?" I say. "That'd be a weirdly specific thing to ward against though."  
  
Alexa says, "I think my problem is that people just like to ward places against dragons."  
  
"We know it's not just bloodline-related though, because Silas would have more of any magical blood that Rune does. Unless Beth was magical too. Doubt it though." I think a moment. "I have an idea. Rune, can you put your bat down for a second? I wanna try something."  
  
She sets the bat down. I pick it up and bring it through the gate. It feel it hit the barrier, like pulling it through extra-thick cake batter, shooting off sparks where the bat and barrier have contact. I shrug and pass it back to Rune. It passes through easily. One-way blocking only.  
  
Rune sets the bat down again and tries to walk through without it. No dice.  
  
"Maybe we can physically pull her through too," I say.  
  
"Let's not try," Jacob says.  
  
"Well, you know more about this kinda thing than anyone here. What do we do?"  
  
Khulan jokes, "We just need to shut down the shield generator. You know, like in Star Trek."  
  
"Actually, yes," Jacob says. "When there's a ward like this, there's a source. If the runes aren't inscribed on the fence itself, they'll likely be somewhere in the center of the warded area. I think I know where to go."  
  
He leads us across the lawn to the manor itself while Alexa and Rune wait at the fence. There's a cellar entrance. Jacob says he spotted it with his scrying. Khulan picks the lock easily.  
  
We slip down, and the cellar's full of panels, each one inscribed with a different complex runic circle. Nine panels in all. Jacob takes photos before he casts over them, unweaving their magic one by one. The barrier goes down, and we go retrieve Rune. Alexa stays guarding the perimeter anyway.  
  
Khulan unlocks the back door. We move quietly into the dark mansion. The place looks wrecked, but not filthy. Tables are jerked around, some vases and dishes are broken, but no trash or stains. Less like a bull was set loose in a china shop, and more like a drunk cow was set loose in a Target.  
  
Rune whispers, "You got that blood ready, Van?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
I have a thimble-sized, easy-to-break pellet of the five types of blood needed for the vampirism ritual, all mixed together, ready to grab on a moment's notice.  
  
The team stealthily covers the ground floor, peeking into every door, moving inside to sweep a room and make sure we don't get ambushed. We get to one of the main parlors and find a dead man on the floor. No blood, no wallet, no bullet holes, no lacerations. I take a photo to I.D. him later. I look around the room. No other signs of combat. The guy's starting to stink though.  
  
"This is weird," I mutter. "This isn't like Chuck. He wouldn't leave a mess like this, he's too careful. If he had to kill someone, he'd hide the body, burn it or whatever, maybe burn the place down, collect insurance. He could have gone feral, but he's just -- he was always too careful, he kept himself fed. Maybe he turned someone else and they lost control, but... I don't know."  
  
I find a non-broken lamp, turn it on and off again.  
  
"The power's still on," I say. "Someone paid the bill this month."  
  
We head upstairs, except for Silas, who stays guarding the ground floor.  
  
Another bloodless corpse in the hallway. A drained woman in one of the bedrooms, in the bed. I take a photo of each. Empty bedrooms. A door ajar at the end of the hall. Through it I can see the room's a nursery. My unease turns straight to cold dread.  
  
We open the door. In the crib's a dead infant. No blood, just like the others. Chuck ate a fucking baby. My dread turns into anger. No photo here.  
  
We leave the room, everyone looking disturbed, sick, or livid.  
  
"Did Chuck usually keep children?" Rune asks.  
  
"No, he -- he didn't usually keep people in his house at all," I say. "Guests would stay over sometimes, but no, not -- This is..."  
  
"This is weird," Jacob says.  
  
I check my phone to find out who the people were, cross-reference the address with the photos. Some family. Nothing special about them except they lived here. I look at Tirabassi's notes for clues.  
  
According to Tirabassi, their conversation was antagonistic, Chuck being more than just evasive but outright malicious, on-edge, sharp-voiced. Not the Chuck I knew. Ol' Uncle Chuck put a lotta effort into his gentle old man demeanor. Just a kindly cousin of Santa's, playing chess in the park, listening to smooth jazz, hanging out with the guys at the lodge, occasionally hosting quiet little dinner parties. He hosts every Renard's fifteenth party at his house, on his dime. He's a guy people trust around their kids.  
  
Or he was. Something changed, and recently. If he was going nuts murdering entire families the whole time, hunters would've caught him a long time ago.  
  
We clear the second floor room by room, finally passing through a study and finding one final, closed door. We all get our weapons ready. I look at Jacob, mime knocking, mime kicking, and raise my eyebrows in question. He mimes jiggling a door handle in response. I sigh and just try the knob. It turns. I push the door open with my foot anyway. I don't get to kick in enough doors.  
  
It's a big, fancy master suite with a picture window and four-poster bed. Charles is standing there, looking out the window, not facing us.  
  
My sire was old when sired himself, old and overweight with a noble's decadent lifestyle. He's got wavy-curly white hair to his shoulders, currently looking more frazzled and uncombed than I remember. He's in his usual style of earth-tone business clothes, but his tweed jacket is somewhere on the floor, his belt's missing and his shirt's only half-buttoned.  
  
"Hey," I say. "What the hell?"  
  
Chuck turns. His black pince-nez glasses are in place, hiding his eyes. "Oh. I wasn't expecting company."  
  
"Yeah. So. Why the baby?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"For one, pretty fucked up. For two, not a lot of blood in babies, so it's not even, like, pragmatic." Since I know that 'pragmatism' was always the guiding force of Chuck's extensive list of self-determined rules.  
  
Chuck just shrugs. "It was either that or leave it here."  
  
Khulan says, "What the hell do you mean by that?"  
  
"Everyone else was already dead, after all."  
  
I don't know what to make of this. "So did you -- Were you --"  
  
Jacob cuts in, "Was someone else already here?"  
  
"Oh, no," Chuck says. "I killed them."  
  
I tense. Never in his existence has Chuck willingly incriminated himself. He must already plan to kill us all.  
  
"Why?" I ask. "This isn't like you. You're a mess."  
  
He just shrugs again.  
  
"Do you have, like, vampire dementia? Is that a thing? Can you get old enough to just go crazy and start losing control?"  
  
"Mm. No. Now, what are you doing here?"  
  
"Looking for you."  
  
"And why would that be?"  
  
"Well. Uh. We're monster hunters."  
  
"I see," he says. "And how did you find me?"  
  
"We looked really hard. But seriously, why are you acting all weird?"  
  
Jacob says, "Maybe he was infected by eldritch horror blood too."  
  
"Oh yeah. Is that what happened, Uncle Chuck?"  
  
"I wouldn't know," Chuck says, "but I doubt it."  
  
"Did you or did you not ever feed on an FBI agent named Atticus?" I ask.  
  
"Ah. I met him, yes. But no, I never fed on him. We merely had a little chat, and I sent him on his way."  
  
"Okay, so, are you gonna explain any of this?"  
  
"Mm. No, I don't particularly feel like explaining myself."  
  
"Okay then." I raise my 9-millimeter and shoot him in the face.  
  
The bullet goes right through his head and the window behind him. He lunges, claws and fangs out, slashing me across the chest with the force of a bear and speed of a cobra. I take the blows, and I pull out the blood capsule and smash it on my bare arm where the sleeve's already rolled up. Chuck pauses just long enough to give me a weird look.  
  
Khulan shoots her bow, Rune jumps in and swings her bat, cracking Chuck's head back, and the next second Chuck's dodged under an ice blast from Jacob before my eyes even register the ice itself. Jacob throws a wall of ice up to shield himself and Chuck smashes through it, hitting Jacob so hard the wizard's sent flying out the window.  
  
Rune bolts, moving so fast so suddenly she leaves crimson afterimages streaking behind her like the Flash, grabbing Jacob's wrist just as he smashes through the glass. He dangles out from the second floor as she tries to pull him up.  
  
I holster my pistol and swing my rifle around and shoot Chuck in the face a second time. The shot hits him right between the eyes, knocking him back on his ass. He doesn't get up, but he's not dead yet, he's struggling, sputtering, trying to heal.  
  
I stride toward him. He tries to crawl backward away from me. I step up and stand over him, put the rifle barrel to his face, use it to flick his glasses off. Ruby-red eyes glare at me. I push his face down with the rifle, glaring right back down at him.  
  
I think about saying some cool one-liner. Something about vengeance. Something about how he just bred my family like cattle. How he threw me away for being too sick to breed. How he fucked me outta my family's inheritance, didn't even give me the decency of knowing there were funerals to attend. Or about the fact he's a soulless monster who murdered a fucking baby.  
  
But no. He always taught me never to showboat. Don't threaten. Don't show your hand. Just do what you gotta do.  
  
My face cool and calm, but my head full of vindication, hate, and anger, I pull the trigger and paint what's left of Chuck's gray matter on the floorboards.  
  
The smear of blood on my arm starts to glow.  
  
I look at it, not paying attention to Jacob jumping back into the room by now.  
  
The blood gets warm, then hot, then painfully searing hot. The glow spreads, not a bright light but a dark swirl of black, plum purple and blood red. The same color as my magic. My personal aura. It engulfs my arm, moves over my body, hotter than boiling water, like being burned alive. I open my mouth to scream just as it covers my head.  
  
There's blinding pain and black-glow, and then I feel myself falling, and then there's nothing.  
  
\---  
  
I'm someplace that doesn't feel like anyplace at all. Then it realizes it has to be a place, and the fog settles and solidifies into the foyer of a modest house. I walk up the hall, looking around. It's hauntingly familiar.  
  
I recognize it when I get into the living room. My first house. Guess I'm dreaming. It pops up here sometimes, but usually it's hazier, like trying to watch a movie through gauze and dirty glass. Right now, it feels real, except there's nothing out the windows. Just an emptiness that my eyes can't decide is black or white or what.  
  
The room is warm, decorated in rich, bright colors. 'Cause it's the '60s, and people liked bright warm colors in the '60s, before earth-tones and pastels took over. It's also warm 'cause the fire's lit. I step toward it, and stop when I see I'm not alone. Someone's sitting on the sofa. She looks up at me, and gives me a warm, welcoming, almost relieved smile.  
  
"Vanessa," my mom says.  
  
She has my -- rather, I have her dark eyes, her black hair, her big nose. Her hair's thicker, fuller, more wavy in a kinda '60s style, her skin's darker, and she's wearing a nice yellow dress with a square neckline.  
  
She looks a helluva lot more real, more realized, than that grainy black-and-white wedding photo I carry around. More than someone you never met and barely remember can look in your mind.  
  
I just stare, not moving, for a long time. My heart hurts.  
  
"Mom," I finally say. "You're real."  
  
"Of course. So are you."  
  
She has a low voice, with a bit of a Turkish accent. Her parents came over from the Ottoman Empire. I never met 'em. They didn't want anything to do with the Renards anymore.  
  
I'm still just staring at her dumbly. She stands, walks over, and pulls me into a hug.  
  
My lungs hitch. "I'm sorry." And here come the waterworks. "I'm sorry..."  
  
She squeezes tighter. "No. Don't be."  
  
"I - I killed you." I pull away, step back, not looking at her face. "I don't deserve - I don't even deserve to know you."  
  
She grabs my arm before I can move away too far. "Don't blame yourself. I... was an unhealthy person. I always was. I knew there was a risk." She pulls at me. "Please. I've been waiting here for a long time to see you again."  
  
As much as I wanna run away, as ashamed as I am to exist in front of her, I want this so, so badly. I swallow, and step in to hug her back.  
  
"Oh, Vanessa. You grew up to be so tall." She pulls back but keeps hold of my arms, looking me over. "I can see so much of myself in you. And Eugene..."  
  
She touches my face. Her hand is warm, with a slightly-cooler wedding ring, which is still warmer than me. Either I'm getting colder or the room's getting warmer.  
  
"I never got to meet you," she says quietly. "I saw you for only a second before they took you away to clean you up. You were so small."  
  
Her voice is a little hoarse now too, but she's not crying. Holding it back. She smiles again, and pulls me over to sit on the sofa. I can't think of anything to say. I'm just staring at her, trying to commit her to memory.  
  
"You passed by, once," she says. "I tried to call out to you, but you just... went back. You looked so..." She frowns.  
  
"I was sick," I say, now that the tears have stopped. Mostly.  
  
"But you got better? You look much better now."  
  
I hesitate. "What do you know about Uncle Chuck?"  
  
"Louis and Gladys's friend? Nothing, why? What about him?"  
  
Oh boy.  
  
"Ah. Um. It's... not important."  
  
"We have all the time in the world to talk, now." She smiles sadly. "As sad as it is to see you here again so... soon. How old are you?"  
  
"Fifty-six..."  
  
"Is this what you look like now?" she asks in surprise.  
  
I look away. She doesn't know about monsters, about Chuck, about the Renard family history. Dad didn't tell her what she was getting into. She didn't know the real reason he wanted kids, I guess. Didn't know the kind of person that kid would be, what they'd do with the life she died to make possible. She shouldn't have to hear it now.  
  
I don't worry about what most people think of me. I don't give a shit about most people's opinions. But there's suddenly a helluva lot I'm afraid she'd be ashamed of about me. I can't look at her.  
  
I feel a weird pressure in my teeth, the canines, from the inside and up the roots. I remember why I'm here, wherever here is, passing through for a second time. If the ritual works, I won't be here long. If it doesn't and I just die for real, well...  
  
If I was awake that would terrify me. That's why I did this, right? Never having to fear death again. But now I'm here, and talking to my mom, and she doesn't hate me, and I guess if I don't wake up this time, I can live with that. In a manner of speaking.  
  
"Vanessa..." She reaches over to turn my face back to her. She looks apologetic. "I wish I had been stronger. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. I just wish I could have known you."  
  
I suck in a breath, clear my throat, trying not to break down again.  
  
"Yeah. Me too," I say quietly. "Dad died pretty early so I never got to ask him. Your parents never wanted to see me. My grand-- er-- other grandparents didn't really know you. I didn't have anyone I could ask about you. I just have a copy of your wedding photo."  
  
She leans over to side-hug me around the shoulders. I put a hand on her hand.  
  
"Anything you want to know," she says, "you can ask."  
  
I notice the furthest walls are hazy around the edges. The empty fog's closing in. She doesn't notice. It occurs to me she might not be seeing the same scenery I am. Either way, I'm feeling hazier too, less heavy on the sofa cushion, like one or the other is getting less real and solid.  
  
"I - I want to," I say. "I really wanna know you."  
  
It also occurs to me that even though she saw me pass through before, I don't remember it. In my memory, I was in a lotta pain from the vampire fang potion, and then I just woke up later in no pain at all.  
  
Apparently, tourists of the afterlife don't get to keep any souvenirs of the trip.  
  
I say, "I don't think I'm gonna be here for long this time either."  
  
She frowns, confused. "Why?"  
  
"It's - I... I'm sorry. It's a long story." I swallow.  
  
"Don't be sorry. Don't apologize for living. I'll be here, the next time."  
  
I close my eyes, tears coming again. "There might not be a next time."  
  
"Of course there w-"  
  
"I might not die again. I-I don't know if I ever will. I try pretty hard not to. And I might succeed. It- I'm -"  
  
The room's almost completely dissolved into that weird fog that my eyes can't focus on. The only really real, solid thing left is my mom. I turn and hug her tightly.  
  
"Don't wait up," I say. "I love you."  
  
I try to hold on to her as hard as I can, as she disappears, and I disappear, and for a second there isn't a 'me', and then I'm just trying to cling to the memory of her instead. Any memory, anything. For a second I'm hopeful I'll manage, in the long second of nothingness.  
  
Then I pass back, I feel a body around my brain again, and there's nothing to remember except that a minute ago I just shot Chuck in the face.  
  
\---  
  
I wake up in chains, in the RV. I feel that familiar calming stillness in my whole body. No pulse, no breathing, no gurgling organs. No calling pains to take care of myself, an empty stomach or full bladder. Nothing. It feels nice. It feels right.  
  
The team's standing around me.  
  
"Hey," I say.  
  
"Seems like it worked," Jacob says.  
  
I focus on my teeth for a second. My canines grow into fangs, top and bottom.  
  
"There they are," he says.  
  
"Cool. Do we still have that five-person blood mix? I'm thirsty."  
  
Jacob pulls out the bottle of the rest of the blood, holds it out for me to drink from since my hands are bound. I chug it all down. Perfectly sweet and tangy, perfectly hits the spot. I feel the energy of the blood spreading through my whole body in seconds.  
  
"Well, I don't have the urge to kill any of you, so that's a good sign," I say.  
  
"Yeah, you don't seem psycho at all," Jacob says.  
  
"I don't feel psycho at all," I say. "The first time I turned, Chuck sent my grandparents away for a week to make sure I wouldn't eat them. He had a bucket of blood ready for me, and I just kinda jumped at it and went bobbing for apples."  
  
I don't point out that chains wouldn't do any good against my necromancy magic if I woke up feral.  
  
Jacob says he's going to try something. He takes out a knife and tries to cut my arm with it. There's some resistance, though not as much as being a Cain vampire. As usual, no blood, just clear fluid. It heals up quickly.  
  
"I heal fast again. Cool."  
  
"I was actually testing to make sure being injured wouldn't trigger a fight-or-flight feral response," he says. "I think it's safe to do this now."  
  
He removes most of the chains, but leaves the ones binding my hands and feet, then tosses the keys to Alexa. "Have fun."  
  
Alexa grins, twirling the keys on her finger. I look at the ceiling. Thank the gods I don't blush anymore.  
  
Jacob ushers everyone else out of the trailer, leaving me and Alexa alone.  
  
"You did it," Alexa says. "Grats."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"So how are you feeling?"  
  
"Pretty good."  
  
"I don't just mean physically. Emotionally. That was a lot of shit going on."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
She pauses. "Are you okay with being a vampire? I know it's a little late to ask now, but... are you satisfied with your decision?"  
  
"Yeah. I -- well -- yeah. I mean. I had some second thoughts about it. But it's fine. I'm like, at least ninety percent okay with it."  
  
"What were those doubts? At least you don't have to worry about murdering all your friends."  
  
"That was one of the worries, yes. Just, well, mortal things. I'm glad I got a chance to be mortal -- for real, actually getting to do mortal things. And I got to fix my appearance and not look terrible." Mostly meaning I got into a healthy human weight bracket.  
  
"I didn't think your appearance before was all that bad."  
  
"Oh. Well. Thanks. Hey, did my eyes change color again?"  
  
"Nope. Still brown."  
  
"Good. I like them better this way."  
  
"So what else?" she asks.  
  
"Well, I got to eat food, good food. Drink milkshakes. That was nice. Yeah. But it's fine. I'm all immortal and stuff again, so like, that's pretty nice." I pause for a while. "I mean, there was one big obvious thing mortals get to do which is pretty much off the table now, but it's fine."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I -- Didn't I -- I thought I said before. Maybe not to -- I dunno. Just, you know. When I was human I realized that uh, having kids was suddenly an option."  
  
She doesn't say anything. I get nervous. This is usually the deal-breaker kinda talk, isn't it? I backpedal a little.  
  
"I-I mean, not right away, I didn't have any specific plans, just, in general, it was a possibility, but I, um, it's not really a direct -- it's not an option I guess, it's -- I can live with that. I get to live forever now."  
  
She still doesn't say anything, just stays quiet. I can't read her face. I guess that's that.  
  
Finally she says, "Should I take the chains off now?"  
  
"I... Well, I guess that's up to you."  
  
"Okay then."  
  
She doesn't, for a while.  
  
\---  
  
Turns out I was out for a whole day. Not unconscious, but dead. It didn't take that long to get sired. Things work differently when you found your own bloodline.  
  
I dig for more info on Uncle Chuck, trying to put together a chain of events and why he went off the deep end. I trace back through any records I can find, using context clues from Tirabassi's files, to find where Chuck was before he got to the family's mansion. He'd been there for at least a week, based on how long they were dead, but less than a month or the electricity woulda been shut off.  
  
With some official-looking IRS papers for "Agent Louise Gladstone", I put in another request for his tax and property data. With all the info, I find another ping on the radar: Meridian, Idaho. He owns property there.  
  
I share all the info with the group and ask if we have anywhere else we need to go before we swing up to Idaho.  
  
"I don't have any pressing business," Jacob says.  
  
"Do you have non-pressing business?" I ask.  
  
"Nothing I need to stop for."  
  
"That's a weird way to phrase that but okay."  
  
He looks at Khulan. "Do you have anything you need to stop for?"  
  
She says, "If there was anywhere else I needed to be, I'd just get on my bike and take off."  
  
"That would be a very anticlimactic way to end whatever we have that could be forming into a friendship," Jacob says. "It would be very unsatisfying for an objective outside observer."  
  
I look between them. "Okay, you guys are being weird, so I'm getting the RV started."  
  
We all drive off. We reach Meridia, Idaho the next day, and find the address of Chuck's property. It's a nice little two-story house in the suburbs.  
  
No mail in the mailbox. Khulan unlocks the front door, and we all go inside. The place is fully furnished with new clean carpets, and doesn't look used. It's dressed up and all ready to go. The power and water are on, so the bills have been paid recently here too.  
  
The house is untouched except for two details upstairs. The bathroom mirror's broken, looks like someone punched it, but there's no blood. And in the master bedroom, there's only one item not covered in dust: A little leatherbound journal.  
  
I pick it up and read it. Chuck's handwriting. Fancy, old-fashioned, lotta loops. Thankfully he wrote this in English, since I don't speak French. Most of this is a pretty dry record of events. Day to day meetings with various people, notes summarizing conversations, financial ledgers, not a lick of emotion. It's all like that except the last entry.  
  
"Everything has gone to waste. I have spent my existence in practical pursuit of that which ensures my survival. I have only ever wished to persist, to exist and enjoy doing so, allowing the river of this world to pass me by but for those times I reach out to pan its waters. I have only wanted the leisure of knowing I have secured a place for myself to stand beside the next generation, and those which follow, when all others have long come and gone.  
  
"And now my efforts have arrived at nothing and noplace. These trees I've planted have gone barren. Everything I have built and bought has gone to waste. What purpose is there now when left bereft of all raison d'être?"  
  
Well, great. Nothing like a superpowered immortal getting depression. That's how families get murdered! God, even when he's just talking to himself he's stupid pretentious. That kinda flowery bullshit's only acceptable in romance novels.  
  
I flip back to find out what sent him over the edge like this. Everything's all normal until the day before that entry, where he says he "suddenly received some rather unfortunate news" and "this unexpected information has set me down a path of incredibly unwelcome introspection".  
  
I take the book over to the others, tell 'em what it says (in summary).  
  
"So, Jacob," I say. "I was thinking you could do your magic time vision thing to see exactly when he receives that news, and eavesdrop on it. Or read over his shoulder if he got it in a letter."  
  
"I can try."  
  
Jacob does his usual scrying thing with the ice over his eyes. When he comes to, he just shakes his head. "It didn't happen here. It happened somewhere else. All I know is it was before 3 PM."  
  
We comb the house for any more clues, don't find anything. I dial *69 on the land-line in case he got any important calls. A confused telemarketer answers. I jokingly offer to sell them a magazine subscription before hanging up.  
  
The team drives around town, asking locals if anybody knows Chuck, or at least recognizes his picture. Nobody does. Seems he didn't really spend time here, at least not to socialize. I also check his diary to see if there's any mention of the Renards. Nothing. We're not recent enough in his un-life. Lotta other families he was bankrolling for mysterious reasons though. Probably bloodbags.  
  
"Should we call those people to warn them about his death?" Rune says. "They'll all be cut off now."  
  
Nobody can agree on a consensus there, so we don't.  
  
Lotta other people mentioned who owe him money instead. I joke that we should call them up first and say we're collecting debts on behalf of Charles.  
  
We don't call anybody. I don't think his debtors or debtees have anything to do with his bad news. We have nothing else to learn here.  
  
We drive off for our next loose end: Billings, Montana. Rune's hometown, fey crossing, and the last place any human saw her little brother Basil Vallens anywhere on Earth.


	19. Never Have I Everland

I start using catnip and salmon to bribe Lucian to ride in the RV sometimes. Sometimes it's nice to reach over and pet a fluffy cat when stopped at a red light. I'm a person of simple pleasures.  
  
Our three-vehicle caravan arrives in Billings, and Rune has a vision. It's another weird, abstract vision.  
  
Rune sees an orange flame that bursts into existence and spreads out into a sphere. Then red, blue, and green circles join it. Then the orange light gets ripped away off-camera, the other three disappear, and some other green light infects the orange one and fills it up.  
  
"Well, that was weird," I say when she finishes telling us.  
  
Jacob suggests some connection to Amos Green again. Rune says it was the wrong shade of green. He says it might be a "truer" green, "after being unfettered from a mortal shell to reach its true potential".  
  
I say, "My best guess it it represents her family. The red for Bethany who got replaced by a Redcap, the blue for rune, and the orange is either Basil or Silas getting taken by the fey."  
  
"I'm sorry, are we trying to interpret a dream of a Jackson Pollock painting?" Khulan says.  
  
"You do know she has visions of the future, right?"  
  
Rune communes with Fate to get some answers. Apparently. To us, nothing happens, but she says time freezes for everyone else when she goes "there". She says that the best answer we can get about how to find Basil, and get Rune released from her contract with the Broker, is to go into the Feylands and find the contracts in a place called The Silversong Vaults.  
  
We don't wanna rush blindly into Narnia, so we go ask a fey for help. We decide on that one chick who was always shivering and, according to Rune, is covered in frost. We track her down working as a cashier in the local grocery store. Silas stays behind.  
  
"Hey Elsa!" Rune calls.  
  
The woman doesn't respond. We wait for the one customer in line to finish up and leave. Shiver Chick gives us a weird look as we walk up. Her name tag says Jenna. We tell her we need to talk to her.  
  
We step away from the register. We tell her we know she's a fey and we need a fey's help. We say we need a guide to help us reach the Vault to get some info from it. She says she'll only agree if we provide a return favor immediately, but she can't say what.  
  
"We're a little worried about signing blank checks, for obvious reasons," I say. "So like, baseline stipulations: No handing over people. Or the cat. Or anybody else who joins us in the future. Basically no long-term servitude, or taking captives or pets or whatever."  
  
"That's fine with me," Jenna says. "The favor won't involve any of that."  
  
Through some roundabout questions and answers, we suss out that she's a proxy of the Broker (as outlined in Rune's contract), and so are we as associates of Rune's, so none of us are allowed to hurt each other anyway, or it counts as a breech and the Broker can show up and fuck over anybody who broke clause.  
  
"So... can we like, get Rune freed by getting some other fey working for him to hurt her? Like trick a leprechaun into kicking her in the shin? Does that work?"  
  
"It would," Jacob says, "but I highly doubt any fey in his service would be tricked into doing that."  
  
Through some more twenty-questions with Jenna we figure out she also has a contract with the Broker in the Vault, but she's not allowed to touch it herself and needs us to bring it into the crossing (where fey deals are void for about ten feet).  
  
We agree, and say we'll meet her at the blackwood gate in the forest, after her shift.  
  
Next step's preemptively getting a bribe for the toll troll. We hit up McD's to get him a Happy Meal. Something about the place makes me skin crawl. Just some pins-and-needles feelings as I walk around inside. No clue why.  
  
Silas stays behind again as we go into the woods. He got stuck in the Feylands for years already, doesn't wanna risk getting stuck again. Rune looks pissed at him about it.  
  
We go up to the troll, hand him the Happy Meal, finally ask his name this time. It's Atodd. He says the guy at the other door is Adirk.  
  
We cross through the little corridor between the gates. Adirk lets us through, but says it's one-way only unless we prove ourselves worthy of leaving. A bridge to cross when we get to it, I guess.  
  
On the other side is a forest, as imagined by M.C. Escher: Paths, trees, roots going in directions that don't make sense, layered like optical illusions, light and gravity coming from directions that don't add up. It's exotic, almost tropical, with wacky trees and flowers of all kinds, Earth-like and alien. Equally alien animals skitter and fly around.  
  
As soon as we step through, I feel something in my head, a soft little ping or knock. It's like when you first wake up and realize you were just dreaming -- or when you first fall asleep and forget you were awake. I remember how until a second ago, thinking about fey hit a jell-o wall in my brain, some part trying to tell me it's all fake despite the evidence. That's gone now.  
  
Jenna's covered in permafrost now. I look up to the words carved in the archway. They used to be gibberish to me. Now they say "No One's Land".  
  
Jenna leads us on for a while, then says she has "pop out" for a bit and tells us to stay still. She vanishes into thin air. We sit down to wait. Nobody's phones work anymore. Neither does Rune's game system.  
  
As she pulls out a book to read, an unfamiliar man appears outta thin air and reaches out to touch her. I jump up and draw my pistol.  
  
Rune quickly says to him, "I do not require assistance," and he disappears again. She looks at us, a little shaken.  
  
"That was the Broker. I... would not recommend doing that again," she says to me, looking at my gun. "That was part of the contract. If I was ever in the same situation again -- being in the Feylands -- he'd show up to assist me. In this case that means sending me back to Earth."  
  
I holster the pistol and sit down again. "I think I need to read this contract."  
  
She hands me the contract, which looks like a little book. It's obtuse lawyer-language bullshit, with references and footnotes shooting back and forth across all the pages, going in circles, full of gotchas that put all the power in the Broker's hand and leaves Rune nothing.  
  
And a shit-load of it is redacted. We don't know half the things she's not allowed to do, or required to do, or what the penalties are for doing or not doing those things. I try to make sense of it, reading top to bottom for hours until my brain's all radio static and letters stop looking like letters. I give up reading for now.  
  
I suggest that from what I can tell, one way out of the contract is for the Broker to just ask Rune for a favor already so she can clear her debt to him. Then she can ask for Basil, which might mean another debt but whatever.  
  
Khulan says Basil's probably in thirty contracts by now and this is probably all pointless. I tell her to stop being a negative nancy.  
  
She pulls out a deck of cards. With nothing better to do, we all play card games, eventually settling on Never Have I Ever using cards instead of shots of booze.  
  
After a while of playing, Rune barely has any cards, Khulan only has a few, Jacob and I have a ton each, and Alexa has the most.  
  
"Never have I ever flossed," Rune says.  
  
I stare. "What?!"  
  
Khulan says, "You mean the dance, or your teeth?"  
  
"The dance," Rune says. "But that too."  
  
"You at least brush though, right?" I say.  
  
"Not anymore."  
  
Everyone looks aghast.  
  
I say, "Okay, when we get back to Earth, we're going to buy you a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, mouthwash, the works. And you're going to use them. Every night. Got it?"  
  
"What's the big deal?" she scoffs.  
  
"With all that sugar you eat, your teeth are gonna rot outta your head. Seriously. I don't even eat food anymore and I still brush."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because sometimes I like to be minty fresh, duh. And, you know, people you kiss appreciate it if you don't taste like thrush and gingivitis."  
  
I glance meaningfully at Khulan, who nods a little. Rune sighs and mutters something about how she'll start brushing. Thank god for a girlfriend to get this gremlin taking care of her hygiene again.  
  
Jacob's turn is next. He asks if threesomes count. We say if he has to ask, it counts.  
  
"Then I've never slept with a woman... one on one," he says.  
  
Everyone except Rune draws. I raise my brows at him.  
  
"Wait. You had a threesome with a chick? I mean, I dunno if it counts if you weren't in... uh... direct contact."  
  
"I was." He sighs and explains, "Back when I still thought I was heterosexual, I had a girlfriend. We were both virgins until a mutual male friend of ours..."  
  
"You sailed right on past twosomes into a threesome for your first time? Damn, okay. Hm. Never have I ever had wings."  
  
"Chicken wings?" Khulan says.  
  
"I mean as part of your body. Like if you shapeshifted into a bird or something. Not eating them."  
  
Alexa and Jacob both draw to that one. No surprises there.  
  
Alexa is quiet for a long time on her turn. "It's so hard to think of something I've never done."  
  
"You could always forfeit your turn," I say. "If you're a quitter."  
  
She glares. I grin.  
  
"Never have I ever died twice," she says. I draw.  
  
"Never have I ever flown a plane," Khulan says. Alexa draws.  
  
"Huh," I say. "You've piloted aircraft?"  
  
"Yeah," Alexa says. "I'm old. Really, really old. I've done a lot."  
  
"How old is 'really really old'?"  
  
"Thousands?"  
  
"Oh. Huh."  
  
Finding that out gives me a bad feeling. I'm already kinda nervous about 'us' in the long-term, so -- how'm I even supposed to matter to someone who's been around that long? I'm just a drop in the ocean, here. Not like I bring anything new to the table.  
  
I realize it's my turn. I give up on trying to name things I've never done. We have rules for that.  
  
"Never have I ever worn a tutu," I say, and draw.  
  
Jacob, Rune, and Alexa all draw too.  
  
"Of all of those, I'm most surprised by Rune," I say.  
  
"I was a little girl once. I watched Princess Tutu. I thought ballerinas were cool."  
  
We both look at Jacob.  
  
"Our mom signed us up for ballet classes," he sighs. "She said it was important for the wizarding arts to help us with our balance and core strength. But I realized later it was obviously because she just thought it was adorable, and she wanted lots of photos."  
  
"There was a slight misunderstanding when I told my grandparents I wanted to learn how to dance," I say.  
  
"I never took classes," Rune says. "I just bought a tutu from Wal-Mart for fun."  
  
Not that Whitney Baker was wrong about the core strength thing though. Ballet's a fantastic foundation for going into jazz and ballroom later. Hm, maybe if Rune ever asks...  
  
Jenna walks up. Her name tag says Janine now. We ask why. She says she changes it every day just to mess with mortals. We ask what to call her. She says she doesn't care.  
  
She leads us along for a while, then has to pop out again. Once again we all play card games or read over the contract. Janine shows up hours later with a nametag that says Jaclyn this time.  
  
"Any questions? Concerns?" she asks us on the journey.  
  
"Lots of concerns but not way to phrase them as a question," I say.  
  
Jacob asks, "Any dos or don'ts?"  
  
Jaclyn says, "Don't."  
  
"Cool," I say.  
  
"Don't what?" he asks.  
  
"If it's even marginally questionable," she says, "don't do it."  
  
Rune says, "Well then we shouldn't even be here doing this."  
  
"Exactly," she says. "And yet, here we are."  
  
'Here' is some shitty-looking little stone building in the woods, covered in moss, looking abandoned. It's like a bunker more than a bank. It's empty inside except for some weathered furniture. Jaclyn has us push the furniture away to reveal a trap door that opens to a ladder going down a pipe.  
  
"Avoid the tellers," she says. "You know the DMV? How they take forever. It's like that. Except literally forever. You'll never escape."  
  
\---  
  
The ladder drops us into a long, all-white hallway with bright industrial lighting and spotless linoleum floors. Uncomfortably hospital-like. I'm on edge. The hall opens up into a vast hall of desks, extending as far as the eye can see in both directions. At every desk is a little pointy-eared creature in a three-piece suit hunched over paperwork. Now I'm getting Gringotts vibes.  
  
Past the desks there's a railing overlooking a lower floor, an infinite room of gray filing cabinets. There's one staircase we can see. The little dudes haven't noticed us yet. We duck back behind the corner. The place is totally quiet except for the sound of paperwork and scratching pens.  
  
"If we go right and then straight to the stairs, we can probably avoid interacting with them," Jaclyn says.  
  
Jacob asks if Rune should even be here doing this with us. Everyone shrugs and nobody stops her.  
  
We sneak past the desks to the stairs. Someone's shoe squeaks on the floor. We rush down before the tellers spot us. And now we're in the clear, all the tellers facing the other way on the upper level.  
  
Jacob magically radars the general area we need to go. Everyone splits up to look through the unlabeled cabinets. The folders are filed alphabetically in order of the fey that made the contract, not the humans who got suckered into them. After that, they're listed by date.  
  
God, this is a lot of victims. I can't think of another type of monster in the world who's done this much damage. Kinda makes me wanna nuke Neverland.  
  
Rune keeps jumping in to try to look at the files and we keep having to stop her.  
  
"Come on!" she says.  
  
"You can't look at his name," I say. "We gotta play it safe."  
  
"But this is my family! We have to find Basil and Silas's contracts."  
  
"Then we'll look for those too."  
  
Khulan's the first to find something: Jaclyn's contract, apparently. She offers it over and Jaclyn recoils.  
  
"Don't, I can't touch it. Just tell me the first name on it."  
  
"Jolene. Is it yours?"  
  
She hesitates.  
  
Rune says, "Look, you helped us, we're helping you. You can trust us."  
  
"Nobody who says that can be trusted."  
  
Jacob scoffs, "We aren't you."  
  
She relents and confirms it's the one she wants.  
  
We find Silas and Basil's contracts next, both from 2008, a week apart. Basil was three years old. The thought of these fuckers kidnapping kids and tricking them into slavery really makes that nuking daydream appealing.  
  
Just as we find Rune's, some shadowy fairy figures start swooping around menacingly, so we all play Pac-Man in the aisles avoiding them. We make it safely to the stairs but just as we're on the middle landing, one of the clerks is standing above and looking down on us. Jaclyn's vanished already.  
  
"I'm sorry, can I help you?" the teller says.  
  
"No," Khulan says.  
  
"We do not require assistance," I say, remembering Rune's pass-phrase.  
  
He gives us a weird look. "Are you sure? That's a strange way of phrasing that."  
  
"We were here on business," Khulan says.  
  
"And just what is your business?"  
  
I have to restrain myself from bursting out with, "Nunyer."  
  
Khulan says, "We were - shit, what's that thing that bureaucrats, fuck - we were looking for some information that we got denied. The paperwork was taking too long."  
  
"I'm sorry, are you saying you tried to obtain information without going through the proper channels?" the clerk says like we just confessed to cannibalizing nuns.  
  
"It was all agreed upon," I say quickly. "We didn't break any - Nothing was breached." Technically true. Very technically.  
  
He squints. "Then I'm sure you didn't take any files from the cabinets."  
  
Okay, maybe not ALL agreed upon.  
  
We say no. The clerk says, "Very well then," and lets us pass. We speed-walk to the ladder and speed-climb out. Jaclyn reappears once we're outside. The building immediately collapses as soon as we're past the threshold.  
  
I stare. "Oh shit. Did we just kill them all?"  
  
"No," she says. "Let's get out of here."  
  
"We still need to find Basil," Rune says.  
  
Jaclyn says, "I'm sure your friend -"  
  
"Brother."  
  
"Gesundheit. He's probably still here if he's under contract to be here."  
  
I ask how soon Jaclyn has to work again. She says it's the weekend. Damn. I was hoping she'd have to leave again to give us time to sit down and read all these.  
  
We travel back to the blackwood gate. The troll on this side won't let us pass. We ask him what it'll take. He says we have to prove ourselves worthy in a combat by trial, but says we don't all have to fight. If even one of us can kick his ass, all of us can pass. Jaclyn steps back. The rest of us step forward. I'm excited to test out my new vampire strength.  
  
Khulan takes aim, Alexa starts charging up, and Jacob shoots ice shards as Rune and I rush in. The troll casually slams Rune into the dirt just as I jump up and climb him like a tree. I go straight for the throat, eager to find out what fey blood tastes like. Turns out troll blood tastes like stale dirt. I get a couple gulps before he reaches back, grabs me and tosses me off.  
  
Khulan pelts the troll with arrows and gets one right through a joint in his armor, but he just casually snaps it off and tosses that aside too. As he raises his bigass sword to swing down at us, Alexa's lightning strikes it and throws him off-balance. Jacob wraps his legs up in ice like the troll's trying out for a sack race.  
  
The troll twists around to swing at Khulan as she's running around shooting arrows. Rune hops up and rushes in again, whacking him with her bat, and he swings the sword at her instead. I jump in the way at the last second and catch the blow, feet sinking into the dirt with the force of it.  
  
He shakes free of the ice and pulls back for another heavy swing, when Alexa lightning-strikes him again. He goes down on one knee.  
  
I brace for another round as he stands up again, but he just laughs and says, "You have proven yourself worthy. You may pass."  
  
Everyone relaxes. Rune shakes his hand. "Good fight."  
  
"Good fight," he says.  
  
"Yeah," I say. "That was fun."  
  
We pass through into No-Man's Land where we can stop and look at the contracts at our leisure, without technically breaking said contracts. We find out the Broker's name is Ictan Valorae. Jaclyn's name is Jolene Masters. She used to be human too - he took her when she was a kid. Fucker.  
  
Finding out her name frees her from the contract apparently. All the ice on her evaporates. She looks human again.  
  
We pass through back to Earth after taking the three Vallens contracts back from Rune.  
  
"Have a good one, Jolene," Rune says. "Thanks for the help."  
  
"You too. I literally could not have done that without you."  
  
Jacob and I give her our numbers and tell her to call if she ever needs us. She says she's leaving town as fast as possible, and getting as far away from fairy bullshit as possible.  
  
When we get back to where we parked the caravan, Jacob checks his phone and says, "Crap, I gotta go do something."  
  
I ask him what's up. He says he has to go cash in a favor. I ask if this is more fairy bullshit.  
  
"No, it's not a fey thing. It's fine. I'll be back soon."  
  
And he drives off. A little part of me worries this is another Adrian problem like the last time he disappeared on mysterious business. The rest of us drive to a rest stop out of town, but not before I buy Rune some damn dental hygiene supplies.  
  
I check the calendar. It's almost Christmas after all that time in the feylands. Time to start planning gifts, and more importantly, planning how to get 'em. Whatever other problems we have, I'm determined to make sure we have at least one nice celebration together, like a -- well, like they deserve.


End file.
